Brussels, 29/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 29 April, the European Commission rendered commitments offered by Samsung Electronics (Samsung) in September 2013 in response to accusations of abuse of its patent rights legally binding under EU antitrust rules. According to these commitments, Samsung will not seek injunctions in the European Economic Area on the basis of its standard essential patents (SEPs) for smartphones and tablets against licensees who sign up to a specified licensing framework.
The licensing framework provides for a negotiation period of up to 12 months and if no agreement is reached, a third party determination of FRAND terms by a court if either party chooses, or by an arbitrator if both parties agree on this. An independent monitoring trustee will advise the Commission in overseeing the proper implementation of the commitments. If Samsung fails to abide by its commitments, it may be fined up to 100% of global annual turnover but, at a press conference, Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said that only companies involved in price-fixing get fined 100% of turnover, and anti-trust fines rarely exceed 1-2% of annual turnover.
Commenting on the Samsung case, Almunia said: “It is essential that intellectual property is not misused to the detriment of healthy competition and, ultimately, of consumers. In this context, I welcome Samsung's commitment to resolve disputes on standard essential patents without having recourse to injunctions in a way that could harm competition. Together with today's decision in the Motorola case, the Commission's decision to accept Samsung's commitments provides clarity to the industry on what constitutes an appropriate framework to settle disputes over 'FRAND' terms in line with EU antitrust rules. I would also encourage other industry players to consider establishing similar dispute resolution mechanisms”.
Samsung owns SEPs related to various mobile telecommunications standards and committed in 1998 to license these SEPs on FRAND terms. In April 2011, however, Samsung started to seek injunctions against Apple on the basis of its SEPs. The Samsung SEPs in question relate to the European Telecommunications Standardisation Institute's (ETSI) 3G UMTS standard, a key industry standard for mobile and wireless communications. The Commission opened an investigation in January 2012, outlining its legal concerns to Samsung in December 2012. (EL)