FRAND - Commission opens proceedings against Samsung

The European Commussion has announced to have opened a formal investigation against Samsung in the question whether Samsung's strategy seeking injunctive relief based on standard-relevant patents amounts to an abuse of a dominant position which may affect trade and prevent or restrict competition given that Samsung had given its irrevocable commitment  to license any standard essential patents relating to European mobile telephony standards on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

PatLit had reported on a selection of the litigations in question e.g. here and here.

Meanwhile, Florian Müller reports on FOSS that Judge VOSS at the Mannheim District court has announced his decision reject Samsung's requests for injunctive relief in both pending cases despite of the suspicious attitude towards the FRAND defence used by Apple discussed in a previous post. However, the reasons for the decision are not yet available.

Suing, not suing both attract the Commission's attention

According to today's Pharma Times ("EU pharma inquiry submissions to be made public soon"), the public consultation following the European Commission’s inquiry into alleged anti-competitive practices in the pharma sector received more than 40 submissions, which will be made public "within the next few weeks", according to Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd. The Commission's definitive report is expected "before the summer". 

Issues specifically investigated by the Commission include “patent clusters” (the making of multiple patent applications for the same product) and lengthy patent litigation: more than 700 cases were brought during the seven-year period, each one lasting an average of three years and with generics firms winning around 60% of cases.  Also on the list are “reverse payment settlements”, made by patent owners to generics companies in order to keep them off the market. Cynics might wonder whether, if patent litigation is viewed as an anticompetitive practice, it might seem a little strange that payments made in order to avoid patent litigation are equally suspect.