It seems that tech giants Apple and Qualcomm have been fighting in the courtroom forever, but that all ends today. Apple announced that the two companies have reached an agreement to drop all current litigation.
The agreement involved Apple paying Qualcomm a bunch of money, although the amount is currently undisclosed. The two companies also came to a deal on a six-year licensing agreement, which is apparently retroactive to April 1 of this year. There"s also a two-year option to extend the licensing agreement, and a "multiyear chipset supply agreement".
The legal battle, as you probably already know, revolved around Qualcomm patents that the firm said Apple used without its permission. With today"s agreement, Apple came to terms with the fact that it did, in fact, owe money to Qualcomm over all of that.
Qualcomm scored numerous victories in the legal battles, getting some iPhone models banned in countries like Germany. Since the news broke today, Qualcomm"s stock is up over 20% at the time of this writing. Apple"s stock hasn"t moved in any meaningful way.
It would seem that the two companies are ready to move past this now. Perhaps, Apple will finally use Qualcomm"s modems in iPhones again, rather than the inferior Intel ones.