The European Commission has abandoned its investigation into Qualcomm's licensing practices after a number of industry players dropped their complaints against the US-based chipmaker. Ericsson and NEC confirmed in statements that they had dropped the complaints, following action taken by the Korean and Japanese competition regulators. 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 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. Ericsson underlined that it will continue its ongoing dialogue with competition authorities around the world in relation to Qualcomm's licensing practices. The EC opened its investigation in October 2007, looking at whether the royalties that Qualcomm has been charging since its patented technology became part of Europe's 3G standard are unreasonably high. No formal conclusions were reached. The EC said it decided to devote its resources elsewhere after the allegations were dropped by all the complainants.
