Research On Federal Trade Commission V.Qualcomm Incorporated Standard Essential Patent Antitrust Case

A standard-essential patent is a patent that is essential for the implementation of a certain standard.With the development of economic globalization and knowledge economy,the close integration of patents and technical standards has become a trend,and more and more patented technologies are incorporated into technical standards.Standard-essential patents have a dual attribute,which have the attributes of private rights of patent rights;as a commonly observed guideline,as its public attributes of standards.Standards will likely will strengthen the monopoly of patent rights.Standard-essential patent owners are prone to abuse of the standard-essential patents they hold,thus constituting a monopoly situation,and the antimonopoly regulation of the standard essential patent has become a hot spot in the study of the anti-monopoly law.The anti-monopoly case of The Federal Trade Commission v.Qualcomm is a latest and typical representative in the field of standard-essential patent antitrust.The controversial issues in this case include the following:the identification of the relevant market;the definition of market dominance in the antitrust review of standard-essential patents;and whether Qualcomm has committed an abuse of market dominance.The abuse of dominant position includes:whether the implementation of the"no license,no chip" commercial policy constituted tying;whether the refusal to license the patents to modem chip suppliers constituted refusal to deal;whether the charging of high patent license fees constituted ultra-high pricing;and whether the exclusive agreement signed between Qualcomm and Apple constituted exclusive dealing.By studying the judgments of first instance and second instance,summarizing domestic legislation and the United States relevant anti-monopoly law,and combining existing theoretical knowledge,a detailed analysis of the focus involved in this case was conducted to refine the ideas of the antitrust review of standard-essential patents in this case.Finally,combining the relevant law and judicial case in China,recommendations were put forward for the standard-essential patent antitrust under the anti-monoply regime of China.The use of the small but significant and not-transitory increase in price method is recommended to define the relevant market,which can be specifically divided into the following four parts,including determining the market,fining potential substitute,making test,uniqueness of the relevant market.The definition of market dominance is analyzed by combining market share and market power,with market share identified based on internal information of enterprises.When comes to the defining of market power,the ability of the operator to control the price,the market entry barrier and the buyer’s countervailing power are combined to make a comprehensive analysis.The standard-essential patent owner’s refusal to license can be analyzed by the essential facility theory.The methods and principle in the case in calculation of standard-essential patent license fee is summarized.It is argued that license rates should be generally calculated on the basis of the"smallest saleable practice unit".The principle of reasonableness was adopted in this case for the analysis of the exclusive transaction between Qualcomm and Apple.It is recommended to unify the criteria for analyzing the illegality of exclusive transaction agreement.It is necessary to pay attention to the regulatory measures taken in this case with respect to the antitrust of the standard-essential patent owners.