American chip supplier Qualcomm Inc on Monday said it had won a preliminary order from a Chinese court to ban the import and sale of several Apple Inc iPhone models in China due to patent violations.

The preliminary order affects all of the iPhone models from the iPhone 6S to the iPhone X which are sold with older versions of Apple's iOS operating system.

In a statement, Apple said its iPhones would remain on sale in the country, with newer software.

Chinese customers pictured trying out iPhone XRs. A Chinese court has banned the import and sale of several iPhone models, according to American telecom company Qualcomm

Qualcomm said today that the court found Apple had violated two of their software patents

California-based Qualcomm, the world's biggest supplier of chips for mobile phones, initially filed its case in China in late 2017.

The ruling came from the Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court in China, the same court that earlier this year banned the import of some of memory chip maker Micron Technology Inc's chips into China.

The court found Apple had violated two of Qualcomm's software patents around resizing photographs and managing applications on a touch screen.

'Apple continues to benefit from our intellectual property while refusing to compensate us,' Don Rosenberg, general counsel of Qualcomm, said in a statement.

Apple shares fell 2 per cent in pre-market trading.

People are pictured handling the new Apple iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max at an Apple office in Shanghai. The preliminary court order affects models from the iPhone 6S to the iPhone X

Because the patents concern software, Apple could make changes to its software to avoid the patents and still be able to sell its phones.

In a statement, Apple said that all iPhone models would remain available for its customers in China. New iPhones use Apple's latest version of its mobile operating system, iOS 12.

'Qualcomm's effort to ban our products is another desperate move by a company whose illegal practices are under investigation by regulators around the world,' Apple said in its statement.

The patents in the suit, which Qualcomm said on Monday had been upheld by the Chinese patent office, are separate from those being contested in other cases in its wide-ranging legal dispute with Apple.

Qualcomm has also asked regulators in the United States to ban the import of several iPhone models over patent concerns, but U.S. officials have so far declined to do so.

The specific iPhone models affected by the preliminary ruling in China are the iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X.