The US Federal Trade Commission has charged Qualcomm with violating the FTC Act. The feds say that Qualcomm’s patent-licensing policies amount to unfair competition.

The FTC’s redacted complaint (PDF), filed today, says that Qualcomm maintains a “no license, no chips” policy that forces cell phone to pay high royalties to Qualcomm.

Qualcomm is a major supplier of baseband processors, and it also licenses patents that it says are essential to widely adopted cellular standards. According to the FTC complaint, Qualcomm won’t sell baseband processors unless a customer takes a license to Qualcomm’s standard-essential patents, on Qualcomm’s terms. And Qualcomm has refused to license its standard-essential patents to competitors, which the FTC says violates Qualcomm’s commitment to license on a “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory” or FRAND basis. Agreeing to FRAND licensing terms is required by the standard-setting organizations to which Qualcomm belongs.