Qualcomm hits back at Intel's claims of anti-competitive behavior

Last week Intel put out a public statement to the International Trade Commission (ITC), alleging that Qualcomm is an anti-competitive bully which uses legal challenges to shut our their competition. In this case, they claimed that Qualcomm was trying to force Apple to stop using Intel LTE modems in some iPhones, and solely use Qualcomm modems. The defense was that by blocking Intel's LTE modems in the US, you effectively made Qualcomm a monopoly in that market (Internationally other major companies who make LTE modems include: Samsung, MediaTek, and Huawei/HiSilicon).

On Tuesday, Qualcomm hit back at Intel's claims, saying that they are trying to mislead trade regulators. They asserted that their lawsuit against Apple isn't focused specifically on Intel's products, it is focused on LTE modems which breach their patents. In response to whether they were forcing Apple to use Qualcomm modems they made this statement: "Apple can purchase and utilize any LTE modem it chooses so long as it does not infringe Qualcomm’s asserted patents."

Intel throwing their support behind Apple may also have partly been due to their annoyance at Qualcomm for partnering with Microsoft to emulate x86 code on ARM based PCs. Regardless of whether this was the case, it has added a third major company into the legal battle that started back in January between Apple and Qualcomm.

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