Royalty payments $2.7 billion in 2002

Qualcomm was the foreign company that benefitted the most from royalties paid by Korean companies in 2002, the Korea Industrial Technology Association said yesterday. According to the association, Korean companies paid a total of $2.7 billion in technology fees to foreign companies in 2002, the latest year for which data are available. Of the total payments, 35 percent was concentrated in 10 foreign firms, including Qualcomm, which pocketed $296 million in royalties. Qualcomm owns the source technologies for CDMA, the mobile telecommunications standard used in Korea, Japan and elsewhere. IBM came in second, garnering $162 million in royalties from Korea; Microsoft trailed in third place with $122 million. Texas Instruments, a company specializing in real-time technology, received $95 million, while Motorola took in $87 million for its products. The association said most of the royalties were for source technologies for major information technology manufactured products such as semiconductors and cellular phones. by Choi Ji-young