Qualcomm looks to settle with Apple out of court

Global chip maker Qualcomm, which recently filed a new patent infringement lawsuit against Apple, now wants to settle the matter 'out of court' with the Cupertino-based iPhone maker.

According to a Fortune report today, Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf said during the Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Colorado, that ''those things tend to get resolved out of court and there's no reason why I wouldn't expect that to be the case here.''

He was drawing comparisons with earlier disputes Qualcomm had had with other tech companies that were settled out of court. Mollenkopf, however, added he was not aware of have any developments about a settlement in the offing.

''I don't have an announcement or anything so please don't ask,'' he told the gathering.

Earlier this month, Qualcomm asked the US authorities to ban imports of some iPhone and iPad models. In a complaint it filed with the US International Trade Commission, Quacomm had accused Apple's iPhones and iPads of infringing six of its mobile patents.

According to Qualcomm all iPhones and iPads that contained competing mobile communications chips should be barred from the country. In response Apple had said that the company had tried to negotiate before suing and that Qualcomm is abusing its position.

The dispute between the two companies started after Apple switched to using modem chips from Intel (INTC) in about half of new iPhones last year, instead of buying all its chips from Qualcomm.

Apple then filed suit against Qualcomm in the US and China in January and aided regulators at the Federal Trade Commission and the Korea Fair Trade Commission in moving against the chipmaker with their own legal actions.

In April, Apple stopped paying its iPhone manufacturers for royalties owed to Qualcomm.