Posts Tagged: "Makan Delharim"

The FTC Should Give Up Its Doomed Fight with Qualcomm and Adopt Delrahim’s New Madison Approach

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) just can’t take “no, you’re wrong” for an answer. Despite its embarrassing reversal by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in August, the FTC has now appealed its Qualcomm case to the full Ninth Circuit. A three-judge appellate panel overturned the trial court’s errant ruling, giving the FTC a comeuppance in its antitrust suit against Qualcomm, the trailblazer in wireless technology with thousands and thousands of patented inventions. The sheer cliff the FTC seeks to climb features daunting crags. The appellate judges ruled unanimously. They also found fundamental problems in the trial court’s (and FTC’s) legal and factual analysis, and so they gave basic aspects of the case fresh eyes, or de novo, review. And several federal departments, including the Justice Department Antitrust Division, weighed in with the trial court in opposition to the FTC.

Dangers Lie in U.S. Government’s Conflicted Actions Toward Qualcomm, Huawei

5G, or 5th generation wireless communication, has reached the point of determining which core technologies will be used. Suddenly, decisions about which companies will be picked are upon us. And the stakes could hardly be higher — for the companies and for our national (and American citizens’) security. The two businesses in the ring, Qualcomm and Huawei, each find themselves in a tough fight to dominate the IP-based 5G technology on which countless devices—from automobiles to mobile phones to who-knows-what—will interoperate. The 5G platform will empower the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence writ large and more—a technological advance with tremendous potential as well as tremendous risk exposure to spies, hackers and such. Both companies face hurdles from the U.S. government. One makes sense. The other makes no sense.