Qualcomm fined €650 million from Taiwanese regulator

The Taiwanese Fair Trade Commission has fined chip designer Qualcomm of 23.4 billion Taiwan dollars, currently about 650 million euros. The regulator imposes the fine, because Qualcomm allegedly abused its patents in the field of mobile networks.

The Taiwan competition authority said in a statement on its website that Qualcomm would not license some companies, while the company is obliged to do so with patents that are essential for the implementation of 2G, 3G and 4G technologies in phones.

In addition, Qualcomm required companies to provide competitively sensitive information about future devices that companies wanted to license when they signed a license. That was not justified, the FTC ruled. Qualcomm has not commented on the fine.

The chip designer has come under fire more often in recent years for abusing its dominant position. Authorities in the United States, China, South Korea and Europe, among others, have already spoken out on the subject. Qualcomm and Apple are also engaged in a legal battle and the American company had to pay back hundreds of millions of euros to BlackBerry.