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Qualcomm is one of the biggest chip makers in the world, with its Snapdragon processors powering a huge number of smartphones. But the company is in some hot water as the US Federal Trade Commission has filed a suit against it for unfair business practices.
According to the FTC’s complaint, Qualcomm has been using its powerful market position to essentially impose “a monopoly on baseband processors”, the bits inside of a smartphone that allows cellular communications. The company managed to do this with unfair licensing deals that punished clients that chose competitors’ chips, and extracted large amounts of money on standard-essential patents. This made it economically unviable for customers to use non-Qualcomm products.
