WASHINGTON - On November 27, 2019, the Open Markets Institute filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of the Federal Trade Commission's anti-monopoly suit against Qualcomm, the biggest government anti-monopoly case since Microsoft.

Qualcomm has long monopolized the market for wireless modem chips, refusing to license its patents to rival chipmakers in violation of licensing pledges it had made to standard-setting bodies and selling chips only to manufacturers that agree to license and pay for the associated Qualcomm patents too.

Qualcomm dominates this market through these illegal practices and compels smartphone and tablet producers to pay exorbitantly high amounts for their chips. In this brief, Open Markets supports the district court’s ruling stopping Qualcomm’s exclusionary practices and restoring competition in the market for wireless modem chips. The brief calls the Ninth Circuit to affirm the district court’s ruling in its entirety.

Read the full brief below or download here.