Qualcomm’s licensing model declared legal

Qualcomm has won an appeal against an anti-trust suit brought by the US Federal Trade Commission.

Qualcomm’s practice of making customers sign broadly drawn patent licence agreements before  selling them chips was declared legal.

Qualcomm’s practice of requiring patent licences from mobile OEMs which do not use Qualcomm chips was also held to be within the anti-trust rules.

The issue of whether Qualcomm breached its FRAND commitments in respect of standards essential patents is a separate matter for other courts to decide in civil lawsuits said the Appeals Court.

The Appeals Court  held that there is little evidence of the mobile market being uncompetitive. “We decline to ascribe antitrust liability in these dynamic and rapidly changing technology markets without clearer proof of anticompetitive effect,” said the Appeals Court.

Qualcomm had argued that if the lower court’s decision had been allowed to stand, it would upend its business model by requiring it to license its technology to rival chipmakers and renegotiate many of its licensing deals.

Qualcomm said “its licensing business benefits the whole industry by speeding up improvements to smartphones and the services they support and it  doesn’t stop rival chipmakers from accessing its technology. Instead, fees are charged to phone makers who pay a percentage of the selling price of each handset.”

For years mobile device makers have argued that royalties should be paid based on the price of the chipset not the price of the handset.

An oddity about the case was that the US Department of Justice took a different view to the FTC. The DoJ took the view that weakening Qualcomm’s market position would reduce the USA’s competitiveness in 5G.


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  1. well let’s hope they win on FRAND as well. Liberal IEEE DEMs sticking their nose in there and trying to hurt Qualcomm. IEEE doesn’t know squat.

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