Apple not only refused to pay but insisted that its suppliers follow its lead and gave them a pile of cash if they joined in a law suit against Qualcomm.

As a result the company reported its Q3 earnings and it was obvious that its profits and revenues were being hit by Apple’s actions.

The earnings report showcased a whopping 40 percent decline in year-over-year profits, with Q3 net income falling from $1.44 billion in 2016 to $866 million. Revenues also fell, dropping 11.1 percent to $5.4 billion. Wall Street had expected much of the bad news.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, without a shred of irony in his own mind that Qualcomm was collecting money on “for no reason”. Apparently, Apple has this market trademarked.

The Tame Apple Press was putting the thumbscrews on Qualcomm during a particularly vicious press conference in which they asked how long before the chipmaker would surrender to the mighty and perfect Apple. They were backed by analysts who were worried that others might join in Apple’s boycott.

Stacy Rasgon, a senior analyst at Bernstein Research, asked given the escalation here, “given everything else that’s been going on, how do we gain conviction that we don’t see further contagion or further spreading to other customers given that this seems to be bleeding out?”

Basically the line appears to be that Qualcomm should surrender to the Apple’s antics and give it what it wants.

Qualcomm reported fiscal third-quarter net income of $866 million, or 58 cents a share, on revenue of $5.37 billion.

Qualcomm was expected on average to report adjusted earnings of 83 cents a share on revenue of $5.28 billion, according to a FactSet analyst survey. Qualcomm did not include licensing fees in its forecast.

"Our financial guidance for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017 excludes QTL revenues related to the sale of Apple products by Apple's contract manufacturers as well as the other licensee in dispute as we expect the recent actions taken by these licensees will continue until the respective disputes are resolved," the company said in its release.

Qualcomm predicted adjusted earnings of 75 cents to 85 cents a share on sales of $5.4 billion to $6.2 billion. Analysts on average expected the fourth-quarter forecast to call for adjusted earnings per share of 93 cents on revenue of $5.51 billion, according to FactSet. Qualcomm shares dipped about three percent in late trading after the report was released, following a 0.9% gain in regular trading.