Apple, in the short term, seems to have at least 2 ways round this – getting the court to consider the workaround in iOS 12 and/or boosting Pegatron’s part of iPhone production, as Pegatron is not affected by the injunction.

In the medium to long term, it is likely that Qualcomm will lose substantially in the FCC anti-trust case which starts in January. Judge Koh has already ruled that Qualcomm has to licence its SEPs to rival chipmakers and has noted that Qualcomm applies a surcharge in its agreements.

With Qualcomm’s 5% royalty on the proposed cap of $400 per phone, that is still $20 per iPhone and 4.4bn pa for the 220m iPhones Apple produces. While Qualcomm certainly deserves a royalty, its hand will be much weaker if it is forced to renegotiate its contracts with manufacturers – one of the remedies in the anti-trust case. It could also be required to repay surcharges, at least to manufacturers that didn’t, unlike Apple, receive rebates.