Late last month, it emerged that Broadcom, Ericsson, NEC, Nokia, Panasonic Mobile Communications and Texas Instruments had each filed complaints with the European Commission requesting that it investigate and put an end to Qualcomm's allegedly anti-competitive conduct in the licensing of essential patents for 3G.

The companies argued that Qualcomm is violating EU competition law and failing to meet the commitments that it made to international standard bodies around the world that it would license its technology on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. The group went on to state that without this commitment, the WCDMA 3G standard would not have been adopted.

According to the group of telecoms firms, Qualcomm is infringing these rules by trying to exclude competing manufacturers of chipsets for mobile phones from the market and preventing others from entering, and charging royalties for its WCDMA essential patents that are "excessive and disproportionate".

The companies stated that Qualcomm's anti-competitive behaviour has had harmful effects for the mobile telecommunications sector in Europe, as well as elsewhere, because carriers and consumers are facing higher prices and fewer choices.

In its countersuit, which demands unspecified damages from Nokia, Qualcomm called on the Finnish firm to stop selling products which employ technologies developed with assistance from its patented intellectual property in the United States.

The firm has not yet stated whether it intends to pursue patent infringement suits against any of the other complainants to the European Union.