Apple said on Thursday it would resume selling older iPhone models in German stores after being banned last year, but only with chips from Qualcomm, which is engaged in a global legal battle with the Cupertino firm.
Apple said it had “no choice” but to stop using some Intel Corp chips in iPhones headed to Germany to comply with a patent infringement lawsuit Qualcomm filed against Apple there in December.
Qualcomm, the world’s largest supplier of mobile chips, is suing Apple in Germany, alleging that some older iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 models infringe Qualcomm’s patents on so-called envelope tracking, a feature that helps phones send and receive wireless signals Save battery power. The alleged patent infringement stems not from Intel chips, but from another Apple supplier, Qorvo Inc, whose chips exist only in older phones with Intel modems.
The court sided with Qualcomm and banned the sale of some iPhone models that use Intel modem chips, leading Apple to pull the devices from 15 of its retail stores in Germany and from its online store in the country.
The ban is a victory for Qualcomm in its legal conflict with Apple.
The iPhone maker accused Qualcomm of engaging in illegal patent licensing practices to protect a monopoly on so-called modem chips, which connect phones to wireless data networks. Qualcomm in turn accused Apple of infringing its patents. A major case between the two is set to go to trial in the United States in April.
Apple began phasing in modem chips from Intel in 2016, after years of using chips from Qualcomm. In last year’s iPhone models, Apple dropped Qualcomm chips entirely in favor of Intel chips.
But Qualcomm continued to supply Apple with older models of chips, and Apple said on Thursday it would only use chips from the German iPhone 7 and 8 models.
“Qualcomm is attempting to use the ban on our products to try to get Apple to bow to their blackmail demands,” Apple said in a statement to Reuters.
New iPhones with Intel chips are still on sale in Germany.
“Intel’s modem products are not part of this lawsuit and are not subject to this or any other injunction,” Steven Rogers, Intel’s general counsel, said in a statement.