EU Drops Investigation into Chip Maker
EU competition regulators ended antitrust action against Qualcomm on Tuesday after rivals withdrew complaints that the US microchip company had abused its dominant power in 3G markets.
The European Commission “has investigated whether the royalties that Qualcomm has been charging since its patented technology became part of Europe’s 3G standard are unreasonably high,” a statement said.
While it had “not yet reached formal conclusions,” it said “all complainants have now withdrawn or indicated their intention to withdraw their complaints,” leading the commission to “focus its resources and priorities” elsewhere.
An investigation was launched more than two years ago after Brussels received complaints from tech giants Ericsson, Nokia, Texas Instruments, Broadcom, NEC and Panasonic accusing Qualcomm of licensing its rights to third-generation mobile phone technology on unfair terms.
Qualcomm’s case is frequently compared by antitrust experts to Microsoft’s epic battle with the commission.
Qualcomm holds rights to the CDMA and WCDMA standards for mobile telephone communications, earning the company handsome licensing fees.
Although Qualcomm developed the CDMA second-generation standard in the 1990s, other companies invented the WCDMA third-generation technology in 1999 on the back of the earlier standard, ensuring Qualcomm royalties also for WCDMA.
The rival companies had claimed that telecommunications “carriers and consumers face higher prices and fewer choices” because of Qualcomm
