The European Commission has decided to close formal antitrust proceedings against Qualcomm Incorporated, a US chipset manufacturer, concerning an alleged breach of EC Treaty rules on abuse of a dominant market position (Article 82). The investigation was opened on 1 st October 2007. The 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. The European Commission said in a statement that all complainants in the investigation, opened in October 2007, had withdrawn or indicated their intention to withdraw their complaints, and consequently the Commission does not consider it appropriate to invest further resources in this case.
Following a three-year antitrust investigation, the Korean Fair Trade Commission has reportedly accused technology company Qualcomm of using unfair patent licensing terms. The Korean Fair Trade Commission (FTC) alleges that the chip designer set "unreasonable and discriminatory terms for licensing its patents". It also says that Qualcomm has broken its commitment to license its patents, where these are included in international standards, on a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory basis, harming competition and inflating handset prices. The complaints appear to have been initiated by Texas Instruments and Broadcom, plus private Korean firms Nextreaming and Thin Multimedia.
Rambus has announced that it has reached a tentative settlement with the European Commission to resolve the pending case against the company. Under the proposed resolution, Rambus will offer licenses with maximum royalty rates for five-year for its dynamic random access memory patents. The Commission would make no finding of liability relative to JEDEC-related charges, and no fine would be assessed against Rambus. The European Commission originally brought charges against Rambus in August 2007 alleging violation of European Union competition law (« patent ambush »). European Commission antitrust procedures stipulate that a final decision must be preceded by a consultation of interested third parties on the terms of the commitments offered.
Rambus inc. announced Thursday, 14 may 2009 that the Federal Trade Commission has dropped its claim that the memory chip company violated antitrust laws in patenting technologies that were eventually incorporated into industry standards. The FTC recently lost before the Supreme Court, ending the possibility of further litigation in the matter. By this decision, the commission's move ends a seven-year battle with Rambus and ended speculation that it might pursue the case against Rambus under different federal regulations.
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