Earlier this year it was revealed that over in the US, Qualcomm had been hit with a lawsuit by the FTC over alleged antitrust violations. The FTC’s lawsuit isn’t the first that the company has been hit with as previously they were also fined in South Korea, and as it stands Apple has a couple of lawsuits pending against them.
However over in the US, Qualcomm is now seeking that the FTC’s lawsuit against the company be dismissed. In a motion filed on Monday in the US District Court in San Jose, California, Qualcomm wrote, “The complaint does not contain any factual allegations of anticompetitive harm to Qualcomm’s rivals in the supply of modem chips.” Basically Qualcomm doesn’t think that the FTC is able to support their allegations of antitrust violations or competitive harm, and that’s why they are seeking the dismissal.
According to the FTC back when they filed the lawsuit, they claim that the patents held by Qualcomm are deemed as standard-essential patents and must be licensed to the competition under fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory terms, but it seems that Qualcomm had refused to do so which the FTC believes violates its FRAND commitments.
Whether or not the court will grant the dismissal remains to be seen, although recent reports have hinted that Qualcomm’s “abuse” of standard essential patents is the reason why Samsung’s Exynos chipsets aren’t found in non-Samsung devices.