Korea Hits Qualcomm With Big Antitrust Fine

South Korea's antitrust agency said it would fine Qualcomm $208 million after concluding that the US company abused its dominant position in selling chips to cellphone makers in the country. The fine is the largest ever levied by the South Korea Fair Trade Commission against a single company. Qualcomm said it would appeal. Qualcomm popularized a major strain of cellular technology known as CDMA, or code division multiple access. Besides selling chips, the company charges patent royalties to cellphone makers that use CDMA, as well as third-generation networks such as WCDMA that use related technologies. South Korea in the 1990s became one of few countries to standardize on CDMA. The Korean antitrust agency, after a three-year investigation, found that Qualcomm exploited its patent position to discourage handset makers from buying chips from rivals.