Earlier this week, Samsung made a somewhat surprising announcement that it will stop its legal actions against Apple
in European countries including Germany UK, France, Italy and the
Netherlands, which were all based on fair, reasonable and
non-discriminatory (FRAND) patents.
Truth be told, Samsung was not
able to obtain any consistent victory against Apple with the 3G patents
used to attack the iPhone maker in Europe. In fact, the most resounding
Samsung victory over Apple in the region was obtained on the defense in
the UK battle, where a court decided that the Galaxy Tab did not
infringe on any Apple patents and that the American company had to post apologies in local papers and online.
Moreover,
considering that these European lawsuits against Apple convinced the
European union to look into Samsung’s FRAND-related lawsuit practices
must have surely contributed to Samsung’s decision to drop the Apple
trials.
However, despite doing so, the EU is not happy with
Samsung, and the South Korean giant still faces an EU antitrust
complaint, according to
:
“We will adopt
the statement of objections very soon,” Joaquin Almunia, the bloc’s
antitrust chief, said at a press conference in Brussels today. He said
the formal notice listing antitrust concerns could be sent as soon as
the end of the year. The EU is probing whether Samsung violated
agreements to license key patents to other mobile-phone manufacturers on
fair terms. […]
“We are dissatisfied every time that we
see the launching of injunctions” involving standard-essential patents,”
Almunia told reporters at a press conference in Brussels. “The
injunctions in the Apple-Samsung case were launched; it was not only a
threat.”
We have no idea what this EU
invastigation entails, but we’re certainly going to keep tabs on the
whole matter, especially since Google’s Motorola will have to face a
similar complaint.
