The stakes have really been raised in the poker game that is mobile patent licensing. Apple has filed suit against Qualcomm, claiming the chip giant is withholding over $1bn which it owes the iPhone maker, and that it is operating an “illegal scheme” to monopolize the smartphone chip market. While Qualcomm has been the subject of a string of probes and actions by national antitrust authorities in the past few years – in China, South Korea, the European Union, Taiwan, and most recently the US – it has rarely been attacked directly by its clients. In some cases, customers may have been deterred by Qualcomm’s greater size and its famous legal teams, and by the difficulty of finding alternative sources…