Chipmaker Intel Corp on Friday in a court filing blamed rival Qualcomm of forcing it out of the market after it had to sell its smartphone modem chip business to Apple at a price that made the company suffer multi-billion dollar losses.
Apple had bought Intel's smartphone modem chip business in July this year for $1 billion.
The blaming comes at a time when Qualcomm is making an effort towards overturning an antitrust decision against it after the chipmaker after it lost a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
Intel testifies against Qualcomm
On Friday employees of Intel filed a brief at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals against Qualcomm's efforts towards overturning the antitrust decision. Intel in its brief appealed that the ruling should not be overturned.
Appeal proceedings are likely to begin in January. In May, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose had given a judgment against Qualcomm. She had ordered Qualcomm to renegotiate its licensing agreements at reasonable prices.
Koh in her judgment had written that the patent licensing practices made by Qualcomm "strangled competition" in a number of markets for modem chips that connect smartphone to mobile data networks, according to Reuters.
Following the decision, Qualcomm appealed the ruling and won a pause in enforcement.
Intel executive vice president and general counsel Steven Rodgers wrote, "Intel suffered the brunt of Qualcomm's anticompetitive behavior, was denied opportunities in the modem market, was prevented from making sales to customers and was forced to sell at prices artificially skewed by Qualcomm."
Rivalry continues between Intel and Qualcomm
The Intel-Qualcomm rivalry has been going on for years now. Intel was selling its smartphone modem chip to Apple for a long time.
However, Intel has now blamed that Qualcomm was using unfair patent licensing practices to drive smaller players out of the business and also signed a chip supply agreement with Apple. Following this Intel within a short while announced that it would be selling off its smartphone modem chip business to Apple.
Intel now puts the blame on Qualcomm saying in its filing that it was like many other smaller players was forced out of the modem chip market because of Qualcomm's patent licensing practices.
