Qualcomm's Case Isn't Closed

By WSJ City 

Qualcomm, it seems, can never fully escape the courtroom. Having recently settled its bruising fight with Apple, it has been tossed back into the legal ring with a ruling that found key tenets of its business model in violation of federal antitrust laws, writes Dan Gallagher for Heard on the Street.

KEY POINTS:

--- The ruling by a US federal judge puts a fresh legal cloud over a company thought to be finally free of it.

--- The business segment that generates the majority of Qualcomm's operating profit has now been thrown into a fresh legal morass.

--- The battle with Apple spanned more than two years and cost Qualcomm a fortune in legal fees and lost business.

Why This Matters

Qualcomm was a key developer of much of the technology used by nearly every wireless device today, but its business model of selling both chipsets and charging royalties on that technology has earned it few friends. The new ruling makes the investment case a legal guessing game rather than a clear play on the future of 5G. For Qualcomm investors, that is sadly familiar territory.

A fuller story is available on WSJ.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 23, 2019 04:05 ET (08:05 GMT)

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