South Korea: To work with EU and US on Qualcomm probe

Korea’s antitrust watchdog said on Wednesday that it has agreed to cooperate with the European Union and the US on possible abuse cases of essential patents by Qualcomm.

The Korean Fair Trade Commission and the European Commission held a meeting on May to jointly investigate whether Qualcomm has abused its standard essential patents by using its market dominant position. Both also discussed on how competitive laws should be applied in general.

The Korean FTC said it suspects that the Qualcomm abused its SEPs using its dominant position in the chip market, and didn’t license them in fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms. The FTC said added it is currently checking whether Qualcomm violated the country’s competition act by imposing high fees for its SEPs used by smartphone manufacturers.

An FTC spokesperson said, “The Qualcomm case can affect many countries globally, and we plan to jointly work with the EU and other developed countries’ authorities in dealing with the case.”

Full content: Reuters

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