Qualcomm Inc yesterday said it has been licensing its patents almost at the same rates since the licensing program started three decades ago to help introduce innovative technologies, defending its role in recent competition probes around the globe.
Qualcomm, which supplies chips to Apple Inc’s iPhone series and handsets from Taiwan’s HTC Corp (宏達電) and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), made the comments as it faces a slew of probes launched by global competition watchdogs over concerns that the US company’s licensing practices might hamper market competition.
Qualcomm settled one case with the Chinese government about 18 months ago by slashing licensing fees by 35 percent for Chinese firms and other companies that sell goods containing Qualcomm’s chips. Qualcomm also agreed to pay a fine of US$975 million imposed by Chinese authorities.
Photo: Lisa Wang, Taipei Times
Even so, Qualcomm is “not a monopoly,” Qualcomm chief legal officer Donald Rosenberg told a small group of reporters from Taiwan at the company’s headquarters in San Diego, California, on Wednesday. “Our general royalty rates have not changed from when we started to now. We haven’t raised them, even though we added to that portfolio of patents by thousands of thousands.”
“When we charge our license, it will be fair, reasonable and non-discriminate. We have done that for 30 years,” Rosenberg said.
The royalty terms that Qualcomm mostly uses today are based on the company’s negotiation outcome dating back to 1992 with then-industry giants Motorola and AT&T, said Fabian Gonell, a senior vice president of Qualcomm’s counsel division.
Photo: Lisa Wang, Taipei Times
Since then, Qualcomm has been charging 5 percent of the selling price of a complete device, or mobile phone, Gonell said.
Taiwan’s Fair Trade commission in December last year opened an investigation into Qualcomm’s patent licensing practices as the regulator was concerned about whether Qualcomm “hampers market competition by abusing its dominance,” commission spokesman Chiu Yung-ho (邱永和) said by telephone yesterday.
Chiu said the commission has requested Qualcomm to submit related information for clarification, adding that the probe is large in scale and will take time to collect sufficient information to make a ruling.
“We believe that our licensing practices are fair and they are good not just for Qualcomm, but for the entire industry,” Gonell said.
“In Taiwan, we don’t know what the key issues are, or what the fair commission is interested in... We are still in the early stage,” Gonell said.
However, Gonell rejected reports that South Korean and Taiwanese authorities have requested Qualcomm to change its royalty model basing on chip prices, rather than the price of a complete device.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS