Intel Accuses Qualcomm of Deliberately Harming Competitors and Consumers

Intel semiconductor company accuses Qualcomm of intentionally tackling competitors using patent litigation tactics. In other words, Intel said Qualcomm threatened its customers and competitors with patent claims. Intel's vice president and general counsel Steve Rodgers said that, despite being fined for violating patents from other companies, Qualcomm continued to use an aggressive patent claim strategy against its competitors. "The aim of Qualcomm is not to defend its intellectual property rights, but to expel competitors from the premium modem chip market and maintain a business model that harms consumers," Rodgers wrote in an official Intel blog.

It is not known whether it was just Rodgers speculation or whether Intel really knew the true Qualcomm motivation. He said that this would lead to minimal innovation and high chip prices for consumers. Both the climate of competition and end consumers are equally harmed by Qualcomm's tactics. Rodgers also recalled some of the fines that had been dropped to Qualcomm. Like Korea which fined Qualcomm 850 million US dollars (around Rp. 12.4 trillion) and the European Commission fined 773 million US dollars (around Rp. 11.3 trillion).

Meanwhile, Rodgers said that the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) continued to pursue claims for violations of Qualcomm's anti-monopoly. It was stated that the FTC will open legal arguments against Qualcomm on January 4, 2019. As a competitor to Qualcomm in the chip industry, Intel hopes that global authorities will help maintain market competition, especially facing the 5G competition next year.

On the other hand, as compiled from Tom's Hardware on Thursday (12/27/2018), Intel itself is not a foreign actor in ligitation tactics. Several years ago, many people accused the same thing of Intel, as Intel accuses Qualcomm. The European Commission has imposed a fine of 1.4 billion US dollars on Intel's anti-competition tactics against AMD 10 years ago.

The case is said to have not ended, because Intel continues to appeal. Intel has also used patent threats to its competitors. Last year, Intel questioned the development of x86 emulation in Windows 10 that Microsoft developed with Qualcomm to support devices with ARM chips. At that time, Intel did not mention the specific names of Microsoft or Qualcomm and only mentioned that there were some who developed x86 ISA emulations without Intel permission. Intel also threatens any company that violates x86 patents. Intel's attack on Qualcomm this time could be due to Intel's fear due to the dominance of Qualcomm's market in the mobile semiconductor industry. But there is no harm if the relevant authorities take part in maintaining the stability of chip market competition