Apple to Modify iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 Circumventing German Injunction Obtained by Qualcomm [Report]

Apple is planning to released a new iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 that circumvent a German injunction obtained by Qualcomm, reports WinFuture via FOSS Patents.

On December 20th, a judge ruled that some iPhones with Intel modems and a chip from Qorvo violated a Qualcomm patent for envelope tracking, a feature that helps smartphones save battery life while sending and receiving wireless signals.

Mike Baker, Qorvo's chief intellectual property counsel, says that U.S. regulators have already ruled that its chips did not violate the U.S. version of Qualcomm's patent and noted that the chip's inventor was not allowed to testify at the German hearing.


“We believe our envelope tracking chip does not infringe the patent in suit, and the court would have come to a different conclusion if it had considered all the evidence,” Baker said.

Today FOSS Patents reports that "there is every indication that the Germany-wide patent injunction Qualcomm obtained against Apple's iPhone 7 and 8 in December is a miscarriage of justice. And there is a possibility of the appeals court staying enforcement of the injunction Qualcomm would most likely never have won if it had not been uncooperative with respect to the chipset schematics of the accused envelope tracker made by Qorvo."

To continue the sale of iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 units in the country until its appeal is heard, Apple is purportedly planning to introduce new models with a different envelope tracker.

The new model numbers, including for example MN482ZD / A for the black iPhone 7 Plus with 128 GB of memory and MQ6K2ZD / A for the iPhone 8 with 64 GB of storage in the color Space Gray, each differ slightly from the model numbers of the previously sold devices. They already appear occasionally in the WinFuture price comparison.


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