14 DAY TRIAL // Last month, Imagination Technologies announced that Apple informed the British firm of its intention to develop graphics chips for iPhones and that the Cupertino company would no longer need to use Imagination’s processing designs.
The split is expected to happen in 15 months to two years' time, while Apple would be actively working on developing its own graphics chips. Now, Imagination Technologies has revealed that it started a "dispute resolution procedure" with Apple, after the two companies failed to resolve the issue regarding licensing.
"Imagination has therefore commenced the dispute resolution procedure under the license agreement with a view to reaching an agreement through a more structured process," Imagination Technologies stated.
Imagination Technologies will sell two businesses
Apple is Imagination’s biggest customer and, at the time of the announcement, the British company’s shares dropped 70% in just one day, while other Apple suppliers have also been affected. Imagination Technology has announced that it intends to sell off two businesses, one that developed embedded processors and another that worked with licensing patents related to mobile and the Internet of Things.
Imagination Technologies believes Apple’s upcoming mobile graphics chips will most likely infringe on some of the British firm’s patents and hopes the Cupertino company will license at least some of its graphics patents. However, Apple has a different perspective and the dispute resolution procedure should help straighten the whole matter out.
The licensing company claims that "Apple has not presented any evidence to substantiate its assertion that it will no longer require Imagination’s technology, without violating Imagination’s patents, intellectual property, and confidential information."
Apple is the biggest customer of Imagination Technologies, considering that 60% of its revenue comes from the PowerVR division, which provides Apple with its GPU technology to incorporate in iPhones. Imagination Technologies has been equipping iPhones with graphics chips for a few years now, and the new phones with custom Apple GPU would arrive in the fall of 2019.