On May 21, 2019, in FTC v. Qualcomm, [1] the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued findings of fact and conclusions of law, holding that Qualcomm’s modem chip licensing and other practices, including its refusal to supply chips unless the customer took a Qualcomm license (“no license, no chips”), violated both Section 1 and Section 2 of the Sherman Act. More specifically, the court concluded that Qualcomm employed its market power in the CDMA (3G) and LTE modem chip markets to coerce cellphone handset manufacturers to sign patent license agreements on Qualcomm’s preferred terms, that the resulting royalty rates were “unreasonably high,” and that Qualcomm violated its duty to license its standard essential patents (“SEPs”) to rival modem chip manufacturers. The
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The US District Court for the Northern District of California holds that patent licensing in the market for semiconductors violates the Sherman Act (Qualcomm)
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