NDRC’s Qualcomm decision: A warning to patent-heavy companies

After more than a year's investigation into Qualcomm, the NDRC made an announcement of its investigation decision through press release on 10 February 2015.¹ About 20 days later, the NDRC published the full-text of the decision on its official website on 2 March 2015. The decision provided a comprehensive analysis on the definition of the relevant markets, Qualcomm's dominant position and abusive conducts that are deemed violating the Chinese Anti-Monopoly Law ("AML"), which sent a warning to patent-heavy companies to review their business practices in China.

We hereby set out the points below to provide insight into the facts and factors that the NDRC considered in its decision making process.