Snippet: Qualcomm is a Patent Troll ☇

Joe Rossignol for MacRumors:

In China, as planned, iOS 12.1.2 also implements minor changes to address two Qualcomm patents that led to a Chinese court issuing a preliminary injunction on the iPhone 6s through iPhone X last week, according to Apple’s release notes in Chinese. These changes were not mentioned in any other countries. […]

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Qualcomm’s chief lawyer Don Rosenberg said that Apple continues to “flout the legal system” by violating the preliminary injunction, which should have resulted in affected iPhones being unavailable for purchase in China, and by releasing misleading statements about the ruling.

While this seems to be China-centric right now, antics like this ensure that Qualcomm is working their way out of Apple’s supply chain (Qualcomm used to be the primary supplier of cellular modems, and Intel was brought in for some iPhone 7, 8, and X models, and now all Xs, Xs Max, and Xr models). Since Qualcomm has the main patents on CDMA technology (what Verizon and Sprint used in the pre-LTE world), they’ve often flexed this muscle and see Apple as a nice target.

While I generally don’t worry myself about spats with multi-billion companies, a lot of people are unfamiliar what Qualcomm does and their role in the industry. While I’m all for protecting patents, some of Qualcomm’s complaints seem like just an excuse to cause trouble for Apple.