Apple stole chip secrets to help Intel, alleges Qualcomm in US court
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Apple on its part said it had allowed Qualcomm the chance to verify
Qualcomm in a legal filing has said Apple stole its chip secrets and gave it to Intel costing the company billions of dollars.
In the lawsuit, Qualcomm asserted that Apple "engaged in a years-long campaign of false promises, stealth, and subterfuge designed to steal Qualcomm's confidential information and trade secrets in order to help Intel and other rivals field competing mobile chips."
Apple's iPhone's had Qualcomm chips but the company turned to Intel after legal battle opened with the chip-making company. Apple shifted to Intel chips two years ago with the launch of iPhone-7.
Apple's goal was to buy mobile chips from Intel instead of depending on Qualcomm, the court document claimed.
Apple on its part said it had allowed Qualcomm the chance to verify and that it had refused to answer questions on information it had shared with Intel.
In dispute being heard at San Diego County Superior Court, Apple has accused Qualcomm of unfair patent licensing practices, the chip-making giant, in turn, accused the most valuable company in the world of patent infringement.
Qualcomm has previously said it gave Apple access to its confidential software tools to help Apple integrate its modem chips into the iPhone.
On Tuesday, Qualcomm alleged that, since filing its lawsuit in November, it has discovered that Apple repeatedly used Qualcomm software to help Intel's engineers "improve the sub-par performance of Intel's chipsets."
In Tuesday's filing, Qualcomm alleged that Apple used the tools to open "log files" from Qualcomm and then gave those files to Intel engineers.
"Intel engineers even complained to Apple engineers about being unable to open Qualcomm log files, which Apple had provided to Intel, for lack of the appropriate Qualcomm tools," Qualcomm said in its filing.
"In response, Apple engineers routinely used Qualcomm tools to create post-processed log files, which they sent to Intel engineers to use in improving Intel's chipset solutions," it added.