2009-11-24

After success in Korea and Japan, Ericsson withdraws its complaint with the European Commission

Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) has withdrawn its complaint to the European Commission regarding Qualcomm's WCDMA (3G) licensing activities. The company will, however, continue its ongoing dialogue with competition authorities around the world in relation to Qualcomm's licensing practices. Ericsson's goal remains the same: To ensure a robust, enforceable and fair IPR regime for standards, particularly those relating to 3G and 4G wireless technologies.

In October 2005, Ericsson, Nokia, Broadcom, Panasonic, NEC and Texas Instruments filed coordinated complaints alleging that Qualcomm was both violating antitrust laws and breaching its own commitments to standard-setting bodies to license its declared essential patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. In support of these complaints, the companies have filed substantial economic evidence that Qualcomm's conduct has caused mobile phone users to pay billions of Euros in unnecessary costs.

"Ericsson has cooperated with the European Commission's four-year investigation to ensure consumers in Europe do not pay higher prices because of Qualcomm's unfair licensing practices" Ericsson's Vice President and Head of General Counsel's Office Nina Macpherson said. "Our goal remains the same: To prevent any patent owner from distorting competition and extorting unreasonable, excessive royalties that reflect neither patent value nor R&D investments in the standards concerned."

In parallel with the investigation by the European Commission, antitrust authorities in other jurisdictions initiated investigations against Qualcomm. As a result, the Korean Fair Trade Commission imposed orders concerning Qualcomm's restrictive practices and imposed the highest fine in its history on Qualcomm. Furthermore, the Japanese Fair Trade Commission ruled that Qualcomm has engaged in licensing practices in breach of antitrust laws, and ordered Qualcomm to cease and desist certain licensing practices, in particular, from extracting inadequately remunerated licenses from its licensees.

Global open standards are greatly beneficial to consumers in that they lead to lower prices, greater competition, interoperability and the development of state-of-the-art technology. Such open standards depend on commitments from all essential patent holders to license their patents on FRAND terms.

Information about the company: Telefon AB LM Ericsson