Tim Cook will be called in for a deposition in late June as part of Apple’s ongoing legal battle with Qualcomm, according to a new report from Bloomberg. If you recall, Apple and Qualcomm are currently involved in a bitter dispute regarding iPhone royalties that has the potential to have a huge impact on the smartphone industry at large. The impetus for the lawsuit, whose roots can be traced back all the way to 2014, essentially rests on how Qualcomm calculates its royalty rate for each iPhone sold. In short, Qualcomm is basing its royalty rate on the entire cost of an iPhone, an approach Apple believes to be wrong and which artificially inflates the money Apple owes.
Indeed, Tim Cook succinctly explained Apple’s position on the matter during an earnings conference call earlier this year.
“The reason that we’re pursuing this,” Cook said, “is that Qualcomm’s trying to charge Apple a percentage of the total iPhone value. And they do some really great work around standards-essential patents, but it’s one small part of what an iPhone is. It’s not – it has nothing do with the display or the Touch ID or a gazillion other innovations that Apple has done. And so we don’t think that’s right, and so we’re taking a principled stand on it. And we strongly believe we’re in the right, and I’m sure they believe that they are. And that’s what courts are for.”
Meanwhile, both Qualcomm and Apple have been using the court system to raise the stakes considerably. On Qualcomm’s end, the company has taken steps to not only prevent Apple from importing iPhones into the United States, but to also impede the company’s ability to manufacture iPhones in China.
Interestingly enough, there have been a few rumblings from the rumor mill indicating that Apple may drop Qualcomm as a modem supplier for upcoming iPhone models. Specifically, Apple will reportedly source the iPhone’s LTE modems from Intel and MediaTek.
