The Cupertino based multinational technology company, Apple is likely to pull some iPhones from Germany after Qualcomm said on Thursday that it posted security bonds to enforce a court order of banning the sales of iPhone models in the country.
As part of a legal requirement, by a German court, Qualcomm posted a bond of 1.34 billion euros, which found on Dec.20 that Apple had violated a patent by Qualcomm on power-saving technology used in smartphones.
Apple earlier said that it would pull out iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 models from its 15 retail stores in Germany when the order came into force and the order had taken effect when Qualcomm posted the bond, post which Apple declined to comment on this move.
Qualcomm's case in Germany is the third major effort to secure a ban on Apple's iPhone models over the patent allegations and has become a part of a global patent spat between the two companies.
The court order has asked Apple to stop the sale of all infringing iPhones in Germany, for which Apple has said that it was appealing the decision.
According to the statement by Qualcomm, the court ordered Apple to recall all affected iPhones from third-party resellers in Germany.
Apple in a previous statement had said that the company would continue to offer all its iPhones at thousands of retail and carrier locations across Germany, which is a direct contradiction to Qualcomm's interpretation of the order. Apple hasn't given any explanations on why it would still sell the affected phones via German resellers.
Apple's announcement of its intention to pull iPhones from stores in Germany is in contrast with how the company had handled the decision in China where they again the iPhone sales were banned after a court said that it violated Qualcomm’s patents. Despite, Apple still continues to sell its phones in China saying its phones were legal there.
Apple had pushed a software update to address the concerns over the Chinese court's decision, but Qualcomm says that the update is not satisfactory and Apple must pull out its phones. In context to the ban decision, Apple had filed a request in the Chinese court to reconsider the decision, which hasn't seen any outcomes yet.
(With Reuters inputs)
