British consumer group sues Qualcomm
Qualcomm claims to pay up to £30 to Samsung and Apple users in the UK
Qualcomm “A lawsuit without evidence”
Photo = REUTERS
In the background of the increase in the prices of new smartphones by Samsung Electronics and Apple in recent years, claims have been raised that there is a “bad thing”, such as an excessive increase in patent usage fees by Qualcomm, an American semiconductor company.
According to reports from the US CNBC on the 26th, the British non-profit organization’Witch’ recently filed a lawsuit against Qualcomm to compensate the UK’s 29 million people for a total of 422.5 million pounds (about 661.7 billion won).
The group alleges that Qualcomm has violated UK competition laws by violating the UK competition law by abuse of its market dominance over the past 50 years and excessive demands for Samsung Electronics and Apple to increase patent license prices. They claim that Qualcomm’s mischief led to manufacturers’ product price hikes, and that UK consumers in the end were unfairly damaged.
Therefore, Qualcomm has to individually pay £5 (about 7830 won) to £30 (about 47,000 won) to British people using all Samsung Electronics and Apple smartphones sold after October 1, 2015 in the UK. The location was requested to the court.
Qualcomm is a manufacturer of’Snapdragon’, an application processor (AP) that acts as the brain of a smartphone, and also holds a’standard essential patent’ related to mobile communication standard technology essential for mobile phone production. No global manufacturer can make a product without Qualcomm’s patent license.
“Qualcomm refused to license patents to other semiconductor companies,” said Witch. “Even if the manufacturer acquired Qualcomm’s license, it refused to supply the chip without paying royalties.”
A Qualcomm spokesman told CNBC that “the lawsuit is unfounded.” He said, “We already have a history of overturning the results of the first trial ruling that last summer the US Appeals Court unanimously unanimously claimed that’Qualcomm violated the antitrust law’.”
On the other hand, Qualcomm has been ruled by regulatory authorities in various countries, including Korea and Taiwan, that it has made a’challenge’ to various mobile phone manufacturers and mobile carriers.
In 2019, the Seoul High Court ruled that a penalty of KRW 1 trillion imposed on Qualcomm by the Fair Trade Commission was justifiable because Qualcomm imposed an unfair contract with mobile phone manufacturers. The ruling came about three years after Qualcomm filed a lawsuit against the FTC’s disposition in February 2017.
In Europe, the European Union’s executive committee charged about 1348 billion won (99 million euros) in 2018, saying that Qualcomm paid Apple to buy only its own chips to beat rivals such as Intel. In 2019, the following year, it charged Qualcomm about 332.7 billion won (244 million euros) for abuse of its dominant position in the third-generation telecom (3G) chipset market 10 years ago.
However, the judgment of the US authorities was different. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued Qualcomm in 2017 that it violated the antitrust law for its business practices that required smartphone makers who purchased their own chips used in wireless devices such as smartphones to sign contracts for use of patent rights. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed it.
At the time, the Court of Appeal explained that “Qualcomm is not obligated to grant its patents to competitors,” and said, “We do not believe that demanding smartphone makers to sign a contract to use Qualcomm’s patent rights hurts market competition.”
Seongsu Bae, reporter Hankyung.com [email protected]