Standardization skullduggery update: UMTS standard

The latest chapter in the annals of standardization skullduggery–or, so far, alleged standardization skullduggery– involves the Universal Mobile Telephone System (UMTS) standard. Broadcom Corp., a manufacturer of semiconductor ICs (chipsets) for communications applications, has sued Qualcomm Inc., another chipset manufacturer and the owner of patents essential to complying with the standard. Broadcom charges that Qualcomm deceived the US and international standardsetting organizations into incorporating Qualcomm’s patented technology into the UMTS standard by making intentionally false representations that it would license its patents on “fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory terms.” (Broadcom coins the terms “FRAND” and “FRAND commitment” to describe this.) But once these organizations adopted a standard embodying Qualcomm’s patented technology, Broadcom alleges, Qualcomm proceeded to demand unfair, unreasonable, and discriminatory terms (unFRAND terms?) for patent licenses. The purpose, Broadcom says, was to give Qualcomm monopoly power over the sale of chipsets for mobile telephones conforming to the standard. The UMTS standard has come to dominate the mobile telephone market.