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The Great Siege of Qualcomm: How Three Waves of Assaults on Qualcomm from 2013 to 2020 Helped Strengthen US Technology Leadership – Part 1

In Technology by Olivier BlanchardLeave a Comment

Who tried to take down Qualcomm? What were they after? Why didn’t they prevail? What does Qualcomm’s resilience mean for the future? These are the questions that Futurum Senior Analyst, Olivier Blanchard, dives into in the first episode of this three-part series, in which regulators challenged the company’s technology licensing model. Under the guise of investigating potential “anti-competitive” behavior, the Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, and European equivalents of the United States’ FTC all took turns attempting to paint Qualcomm’s technology licensing and/or business practices as anti-competitive, when they, in fact, were not.

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ICYMI: 2016 $15 Billion Judgment Against Apple Hangs on by a Thread Following General Court of the European Court of Justice Ruling

In Technology News by Olivier BlanchardLeave a Comment

At the heart of the European Commission’s case against Apple (and by default, to some degree, against Ireland) is the fact that EU member States, under EU state aid rules, are prohibited from providing tax benefits to select companies. In 2016, the EC concluded that Ireland had granted illegally preferential and artificially low tax benefits to Apple.

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US Antitrust Action against Google Could Come Sooner than Expected

In Technology News by Olivier BlanchardLeave a Comment

At the heart of Google’s US antitrust troubles is the search giant’s staggering advantage in online search: Google processes roughly 90% of all online searches in the US. But there’s a difference between hypercompetitive behavior and anticompetitive behavior, and I believe that’s what this case is about. As this plays out, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the DOJ’s antitrust case against Google rubbing up against the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ recent ruling in FTC vs. Qualcomm. Interesting times ahead, to be sure.