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Apple And Qualcomm End All Of Their Legal Disputes

In a surprising turn of events, Apple and Qualcomm have dropped all the charges they had against each other and have put an end to the two-year-old legal battle both companies were fighting.

As per both Apple and Qualcomm, the companies have entered a six-year license agreement that is extendable to another two years. The contract (which came in effect from April 1, 2019) will lead to a multi-year chipset deal between Apple and Qualcomm with the latter providing chips to Apple.

Additionally, Apple is liable to pay an unspecified amount of money to Qualcomm.

The decision to settle the litigation came just one day after court proceedings in a San Diego courtroom.

For those who don’t know, the legal action, which began back in 2017, involved patent infringement accusations on the part of both companies.

Qualcomm had accused Apple of violating around 16 patents, and Apple, in turn, imposed further accusations of infringement of about seven to eight patents based on power management.

Additionally, Apple accused Qualcomm of supplying its chipsets with patents at much higher prices due to the monopoly of the company in the market.

The settlement comes as a surprise to all as Apple and Qualcomm have gone to all extents to bring each other down in the tech world.

For instance, Qualcomm had filed for the ban of the iPhone X and the iPhone 8, and it succeeded with the ban of older iPhone models in Germany which ruled in favor of Qualcomm.

However, Apple and Qualcomm weren’t always at loggerheads; prior to the legal proceedings, Apple had relied on Qualcomm chips for its iPhones until 2015, after which it started using Intel chips for the iPhone 7 series and so on.

As a result, the peaceful legal settlement between Apple and Qualcomm has not proved happy for Intel as Apple won’t be using Intel processors now, which has led to an increase in competition for Intel.

Following the news of the settlement, Intel announced that it wouldn’t produce 5G-focused modems for smartphones but will focus on modems for PCs and smart home devices.

While we still don’t know what made both companies friends again, one thing we know is that both Apple and Qualcomm are in for a gain due to the deal. Apple won’t have to worry about the 5G modems in the future, and Qualcomm will keep the money flowing in along with an increase in power, further causing trouble for Intel.

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