European Union ( EU) antitrust regulators stops investigation into wireless chip maker Qualcomm Inc. after mobile phone companies withdrew charges about high royalty fees.

Broadcom Corp., NEC Corp., Nokia Corp., LM Ericsson, Panasonic Mobile Communications and Texas Instruments Inc. had launched complaints against Qualcomm stating that the company broke agreements among patent holders to keep costs at reasonable levels for key WCDMA patents used in third-generation phones.

Qualcomm's General Counsel Don Rosenberg mentioned that the company was "extremely pleased" that the four-year EU probe was over without any charges.

Ericsson revealed that phone companies had filed "substantial economic evidence that Qualcomm's conduct has caused mobile phone users to pay billions of euros in unnecessary costs."

EU's executive was concerned about how technology was priced after it was followed as an industry standard but could not commit the time or resources to "complex" assessments.

"Any antitrust enforcer has to be careful about overturning commercial agreements," it said in a statement. "The commission does not consider it appropriate to invest further resources in this case."

South Korea's fair trade regulator charged Qualcomm with a record $208 million for using its dominant position as a supplier of CDMA mobile phone chips to charge higher royalties to companies using rival chipsets.

Qualcomm developed CDMA (code division multiple access) which was a rival standard to the dominant cellular standard GSM (global system for mobile). CDMA is popular in United States and South Korea, chip and Qualcomm receives high royalty from manufacturers of handsets.

Japan's fair trade commission also instructed Qualcomm to end monopoly abuse linked to contracts .

Source: Associated Press