Don't Use Antitrust Law to Settle Patent Disputes, Delrahim Says Amid 'Qualcomm v. FTC'

Antitrust law shouldn’t be used to settle patent disputes, DOJ Antitrust Chief Makan Delrahim said Thursday amid Qualcomm’s antitrust appeal against the FTC (see 1905220035). Antitrust remedies aren’t the proper tools for settling fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) terms disputes, he told the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation in Paris. Delrahim didn’t directly mention Qualcomm. Relief through contract law is the correct route for deciding proper FRAND interpretations, he said. “Sophisticated commercial parties often view FRAND commitments as a cost-control mechanism” but a more troubling trend is implementers using FRAND “as a source of leverage to demand subcompetitive royalty rates from the owners of patents for new technologies, under threat of litigation,” he said.