Qualcomm Accused Of Anti-Competitive Activity

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

01 November 2005

It emerged on Friday that Broadcom, Ericsson, NEC, Nokia, Panasonic Mobile Communications and Texas Instruments have each filed complaints to 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 mobile technology.

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

Kasim Alfalahi, Vice President IPR Licensing and Patent Development at Ericsson suggested that:

"Qualcomm committed to standard setting organizations that it would license its technology on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. In spite of this and in breach of competition law, Qualcomm is charging excessive and disproportionate royalties. This means ultimately that consumers may have to pay more than they should for their mobile handsets."

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