CDMA operator Qualcomm may face an investigation of its licensing fees by the European Commission following complaints by handset makers and rival chipmakers. Qualcomm’s opponents allege that the company does not license its technology on reasonable terms, levying the same royalty rate on WCDMA as its own 3G brand, CDMA2000, despite WCDMA’s intellectual property being smaller than CDMA2000’s. Qualcomm, however, claims that the royalty rate is a low single-digit percentage, necessitated by research costs.
