“In late July I blogged about Apple’s FRAND [fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory] defense against some of Samsung’s patents-in-suit. In that post I also explained the concept of FRAND and the role FRAND licensing plays in connection with industry standards,” Florian Mueller reports for FOSS Patents.
“The fact that FRAND commitments restrict the ways in which a patent holder can leverage standards-essential patents in disputes with competitors is also important to consider in the context of Google’s proposed acquisition of Motorola Mobility (MMI),” Mueller reports. “Most of MMI’s patents aren’t particularly strong. Yesterday, M-CAM founder and CEO Dr. David Martin simply called them ‘crap’ on Bloomberg TV.”
“And the relatively best ones MMI has — which wasn’t discussed on Bloomberg — are subject to FRAND commitments. Standards-essential patents can be great parking meters to collect limited amounts of money, but they just aren’t nuclear warheads and won’t protect Android,” Mueller reports. “The limitations of FRAND were raised again in a brief filed yesterday by Apple with the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in opposition to a Samsung motion to dismiss and strike Apple’s FRAND-related counterclaims. In that pleading, Apple also makes reference to its FRAND-related claims against MMI.”
Mueller reports, “Apple accuses Samsung of ‘serial standard-setting abuses,’ ‘deceiving standards-setting organizations,’ and having ‘perpetrated’ ‘anticompetitive ambush.'”
Read more in the full article here.