ANTI-TRUST POLICY : COMMISSION PROBES SAMSUNG.

The European Commission decided, on 31 January, to open a formal investigation to determine whether Samsung Electronics has abusively used certain of its standard essential patent rights to distort competition in the EU's mobile device markets, in breach of Community anti-trust rules.

In 2011, Samsung sought injunctive relief in various member states' courts against competing mobile device makers based on alleged infringements of certain of its patent rights, which it has declared essential to implement European mobile telephony standards. The Commission will investigate, in particular, whether in doing so Samsung has failed to honour its irrevocable commitment given in 1998 to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to license any standard essential patents relating to European mobile telephony standards on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND)...

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