European Commision Launches Investigation Into Samsung Over Essential 3G Patents

Today European Commission announced the launch of an investigation to determine whether Samsung has violated EU antitrust laws in its legal agreements with competing companies. The European Commission will focus on patents that must be licensed on FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) terms.

According the press release, regulators want to determine whether Samsung:

“used certain of its standard essential patent rights to distort competition in European mobile device markets, in breach of EU antitrust rules”.

The Сommission notes that a decade ago Samsung promised to allow competitors to license its standard essential mobile patents on FRAND terms.

The thorough investigation is opened in the light of the suits brought by Samsung against Apple at courts in The Netherlands, France, Germany and other countries. In this suits the company claims copyright infringement relating to patents essential to standards of wireless telecommunications.

The document reads that a case is a matter of priority. Patent expert Florian Mueller explains:

“the European Commission can’t wait until Samsung finally wins a ruling based on such a patent and enforces it, potentially causing irreparable harm”.