On Tuesday, Qualcomm accused Apple of trade secret theft, having filed a lawsuit against the Cupertino-based electronics giant that alleges the company stole a large number of its protected modem technologies and provided them to Intel with the goal of improving the modems made by its rival, ultimately benefitting the new iPhone models.
Apple has been phasing out Qualcomm modems from its devices for several product generations now and managed to completely eliminate them from its products with the iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max announced earlier this month. The latest iOS smartphones from the company are solely reliant on Intel modems, chips that allow them to communicate with cellular networks. Qualcomm already sued Apple last year after the firm refused to provide it with its modem source code for auditing purposes. The new lawsuit is consequently an evolution of the original one, albeit its allegations are significantly more serious.
In the original complaint, Qualcomm accused Apple of violating agreements the two companies entered into by failing to allow Qualcomm to take its own measures to ensure that Apple was complying with the substantive terms of these agreements. The second amendment will now add a cause of action “for trade secret misappropriation.”
According to Apple, they filed a Motion to Compel any evidence Qualcomm has in support of these allegations and Qualcomm has yet to respond. Apple also noted that Qualcomm did not attach any documents or any other evidence supporting these allegations to their amended complaint.
Qualcomm responded to Apple’s statements by point to an online post in which a laid-off Intel employee seemingly admitted to “copying” Qualcomm’s technology through “hints” from Apple in the form of a “reference device.”
Apple also currently has a number of counterclaims in this matter that assert that Qualcomm chips infringed on patents held by Apple.
