Up until now, it was believed that Samsung was intentionally keeping its Exynos chipsets reserved for its devices. However, it looks like it was Qualcomm that has been preventing Samsung from selling its Exynos chipset to other OEMs all this time.

A report from The Korea Economic Daily says that Qualcomm abused the “standard essential patent” to prevent Samsung from selling its modem and integrated chipsets to other OEMs for about 25 years. The startling revelation was made during the Fair Trade Commission’s investigation into Qualcomm’s trade practises for unfairly using its market power to its advantage.

The Fair Trade Commission said in the resolution, “Samsung Electronics has been blocked from selling its modem chipsets to other smartphone manufacturers due to a license deal it signed with Qualcomm.”

Qualcomm has long been known to leverage its market position for its own advantage. But preventing Samsung from selling its chipsets to other OEMs does take matters to a whole new level.

Qualcomm has a tendency of charging its clients with unfair royalty if they do not use its own modem and chipsets in their devices. The company is currently fighting a $1 billion lawsuit against Apple in which the latter has accused it of charging unfair royalty charges for technology that it has no connection with.