Business Intellectual Property

Dispute on Intellectual Property

The mobile technology industry is never missing these cases with Qualcomm and Apple having gone back to the corridors of justice just after the conclusion of another legal battle. Qualcomm filed a patent infringement case against Apple with the ITC and US Federal Court of Justice in July 2017. With the complaint at ITC, Qualcomm accuses Apple of infringement of 6 of its Qualcomm’s patents and the application of the technology to get the high performance of the smartphone to increase its battery life. In the suit, Qualcomm made a claim for damages and interim relief with the US District Court for the Southern District of California. Some of the patents were issued in 2015 and 2017 (Freeman, 2017).

In response, Apple denied the claims of infringement as filed by Qualcomm and made its own accusations that Qualcomm had violated at least eight of its battery life patents. Their patents involved the having the phone’s process only use minimum power needed, switching off the parts of the processor when not being used and effective sleep and wake functions. The alleged infringements are on Qualcomm’s processors mainly used on Samsung and Google phones.

Both parties will need to produce evidence of infringement of the patent rights. Infringement of a patent is the unauthorized use, selling or importing patented inventions within the period of the patent. Qualcomm will need to prove that Apple is using its patented innovation without paying. Apple will also need to show that Qualcomm is infringing on its patent in their processors. If they prove that, the outcome may impose fines and penalties against each other for the infringements.

Disparaging Trademarks

In this ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board had acted beyond its powers and violated a clause on the federal law in the act of prohibiting the disparaging trademarks (Swoyer, 2017). Regarding the legal implication, I agree with Supreme Court as it is the apex court of the land. It acted right according to the law, and as a society guided by the rule of law, we have to adhere to that. However, It is clear that there a gap in this law that can be used by organizations and individuals to trademark offensive names. The Supreme Court pointed out that the law needed to change and with this, I agree. This will help avoid instances where someone may trademark offensive and racist names just because the law is mum on this. This is a contentious issue that should be addressed.

References

Freeman, M. (2017). Qualcomm takes aim at Apple’s Flagship iPhone X, to Seek Partial Ban in US}. The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Swoyer, A. (2017). Supreme Court Ruling Against Censoring The Slants’ Name Bolsters Washington Redskins Trademark Case. Retrieved from https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/19/washington-redskins-trademark-fight-aided-by-supre/