Will Qualcomm's license model change? Can South Korea's heavy punishment change?

The South Korean Fair Trade Commission issued a 1.03 trillion won anti-monopoly fine on global mobile phone chip leader Qualcomm yesterday (28).

The industry believes that the impact of this ruling on the industry depends on the conditions attached. Once the calculation basis of the patent grant is changed, it will impact the cost competitiveness of Korean and non-Korean mobile phone factories.

In recent years, Qualcomm has been subject to anti-monopoly investigations in mainland China, South Korea, the European Union and Taiwan because of the patent grants to customers. The mainland took the lead in issuing high-end anti-monopoly to Qualcomm at the beginning of last year for 975 million US dollars (about NT$31.7 billion). fine.

Last year, the NDRC issued a penalty to Qualcomm. It also required Qualcomm to charge a 65% net license fee for 3G and 4G terminal devices, representing a 60% discount on the patent license fee charged to the mobile phone factory.

In the past, many mainland mobile phone factories did not pay patrol license fees to Qualcomm. Once they signed a 60% discount with Qualcomm, representatives must start paying fees according to the contract, causing some mobile phone factory orders that are not willing to sign a new contract with Qualcomm to flow to MediaTek.

The industry believes that it is not a problem to pay fines with Qualcomm's financial resources. Therefore, the impact of being fined by South Korea still depends on the conditions attached.

If you compare Qualcomm and require Qualcomm to adjust the patent authorization content, such as requesting a discount or changing the billing benchmark, it will have an impact on the industry chain.

In the past, the industry once reported that South Korea’s fair will be tempered to require Qualcomm to change the calculation basis of patent licensing fees during the Qualcomm investigation process, and change the current factory price of 5% to 5% of the price of the wafer.

Once it comes true, it will make the cost of Korean mobile phone chips drop, which may be only one-tenth of non-Korean mobile phones. But this rumor was denied by Qualcomm.

In response to antitrust investigations in various countries, Qualcomm Lawyer Don Rosenberg once stressed that Qualcomm does not illegally obtain market share, is not a monopoly enterprise, but has accumulated tens of thousands of patents in 30 years of enterprise development; and IP is to protect innovation and adopt extensive authorization. Let the industry benefit.

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