Collecting licensing fees for intellectual property

The San Diego, California based Qualcomm, the global leader of manufacturing and selling mobile communications chips is accusing some small Chinese manufacturers of not paying or don’t want to pay licensing fees. Chinese government on the other hand is investigating Qualcomm for allegedly violating antitrust regulation and for its monopolistic trading method related violations. Collecting licensing fees for using intellectual property worldwide is a big problem for many global companies. Qualcomm continues to experience its share of issues with collecting royalties in China. This has been a problem for many international companies doing business in China.

Chinese smartphone market is expanding more than any other country in the world. A new 4G network in China is also contributing to the fast growth in smartphones and tablets. However, Qualcomm has been experiencing problems collecting licensing fees in China for quite some time. Qualcomm’s CDMA cellphone technology is widespread in the world and it generates most of its profits. Many small local manufacturers in China that Qualcomm normally don’t deal with are using Qualcomm’s technology without paying licensing fees. In the meantime, Chinese government’s probe of Qualcomm’s anti-trust violations could result in fines up to $1 billion, some experts estimate.