Qualcomm’s Apple suit turns to a Beijing court

Bloomberg

As Qualcomm Inc. turns to a Chinese court in its battle with Apple Inc., the task of deciding who prevails in a dispute that could affect a million workers falls to a relatively new arm of the country’s judiciary. The Beijing Intellectual Property Court is one of three specialist venues in the Chinese judiciary set up to rule exclusively on such cases. Since being established in 2014, they’ve proven popular with plaintiffs asserting copyright because of a perceived willingness to mete out stiffer penalties and have heard other cases involving Qualcomm and Microsoft Corp.
Qualcomm made its court filing on September 29, seeking to ban production and sale of iPhones in China. That would hit Apple in its biggest overseas market and the country where most of its products are made. It’s the latest step in a global battle over patent licensing fees and is being waged in a venue created just for complex technology and intellectual property disputes.
The ramifications are huge. Through assemblers such as Foxconn Technology Group and Pegatron Corp., Apple is the biggest factor for the roughly 1 million workers at factories from Shenzhen to Zhengzhou. A ruling against it could more than disrupt production, it would jeopardise jobs that are a major force in lifting regional economies from poverty. The Beijing IP court handles patent, trademark and some administrative cases involving copyright and unfair competition, with the power to issue injunctions and award damages. Its verdicts can be appealed to the High Court in Beijing, according to jurisdiction rule.
“Qualcomm may think it’s good timing to file the case as Apple is slowly declining here in China,” said Jin Di, an analyst at IDC. “Neither side is apparently backing down and the best solution could be going back to the negotiation table.”
It won’t be Apple’s first experience in this court, with the company winning a dispute with little-known smartphone vendor Shenzhen Baili over design patents. In a dispute between Microsoft and China’s trademark approval committee this year, the software giant won its case at the court. It ruled in favour of Qualcomm in a high-profile patent dispute against Alibaba-backed smartphone maker Meizu.
The dispute has seen Apple cut off payments to Qualcomm while the chipmaker has countered with a suit arguing the iPhone-maker encouraged regulators from South Korea to the US to take action against it based on false testimony. It’s asking US authorities to ban the import of some versions of the iPhone, arguing they infringe on its patents.