Qualcomm reaches settlement in Taiwan anti-trust case

“Mobile chipmaker Qualcomm Inc will settle an anti-trust case with Taiwanese regulators for about $93 million, and has also pledged to invest $700 million in Taiwan over the next five years,” Reuters reports.

“The settlement replaces a fine of roughly $778 million imposed by Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission in 2017, when it accused the U.S. firm of refusing to sell chips to mobile handset makers that wouldn’t agree to its patent-licensing terms,” Reuters reports. “It was also accused of cutting iPhone maker Apple Inc a royalty discount in exchange for the exclusive use of Qualcomm’s modem chips in the past.”

“Under the settlement, Qualcomm will have to provide reports every six months to Taiwanese officials for five years to show it is negotiating in good faith with handset makers in patent-licensing deals,” Reuters reports. “Moreover, Qualcomm will be required to offer patent licenses to rival chipmakers… on fair terms before seeking to enforce its patent rights against them in court. Qualcomm also is in the midst of appealing a $927 million fine from the Korea Fair Trade Commission and a $1.2 billion fine from the European Commission. It also faces a lawsuit from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and is in a wide-ranging legal dispute with Apple.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Qualcomm’s house of cards is slowly collapsing.

Qualcomm’s unreasonable, illogical, and irrational licensing scam, which charges a percentage of the total cost of all components in the phone, even non-Qualcomm components, must end.

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