Apple Reportedly Not Interested In Settlement For Legal Dispute With Qualcomm

A long-running legal dispute between two tech giants will continue, as Apple’s (AAPL) case against Qualcomm (QCOM) appear to be headed to federal court in San Diego, California. A source told Reuters that Apple is not talking to Qualcomm “at any level” and has no interest in settlement talks with the mobile chip manufacturer.

The two tech behemoths are scheduled to go to trial early next year over Qualcomm’s business model, which charges hardware makers a patent licensing fee when they use Qualcomm’s wireless data chips. Apple used Qualcomm chips for several years in its iPhones, but Qualcomm claimed that was not the case in this year’s models.

In July, Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf said the company was in talks with Apple about bringing the dispute to an end, which the Apple source disputed.

“There is absolutely no meaningful discussion taking place between us and Qualcomm, and there is no settlement in sight,” the Reuters source said. “We are gearing up for trial.”

To counter Apple’s accusation that Qualcomm charges too much for the use of its chips, the semiconductor firm accused Apple of stealing trade secrets to help Intel in September. Then, in October, Qualcomm claimed Apple owed $7 billion in royalties for iPhone parts, which Apple disputed.

Qualcomm has more than 100,000 patents pertaining to wireless data transfer. The company essentially levies a “Qualcomm tax” on hardware manufacturers, which can come out to as much as 5 percent of a device’s price in royalties. That means a company like Apple needs to pay the price of the part as well as the patent licensing fee.

Nokia also took Qualcomm to court over anti-competitive practices in 2005 but the two sides reached a settlement in 2008.

Shares of Apple gained 1.93 percent in early afternoon trading Wednesday. Shares of Qualcomm were down 1.12 percent.