“A couple of court decisions announced in Seoul, South Korea, this morning indicate that South Korea has decided to become a rogue state in connection with standard-essential patents, essentially telling foreign companies that in order to sell their technology products to the country’s 50-million population, they must bow to extortion by Samsung and LG,” Florian Mueller writes for FOSS Patents.
“This is highly problematic and will have diplomatic repercussions,” Mueller writes. “The victims of such abuse will be companies from the United States, Europe and Japan, and increasingly also Chinese companies. I don’t know what Apple is going to do, but it would make sense to talk to both U.S. presidential candidates at the earliest opportunity.”
Mueller writes, “What appears at first sight to be a mixed ruling and will be subject to a de novo (from scratch) review by an appeals court is actually a declaration of a trade war. It would mean that foreign companies would either have to bow to Samsung’s and LG’s demands and, among other things, give up their own non-standard-essential intellectual property or stop selling in Korea. If I were Apple, I would defend myself vigorously and, if necessary, write off the Korean market until this issue is resolved through bilateral U.S.-Korea talks or at the level of the World Trade Organization.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: As expected: Samsung’s criminal leadership pretty much owns South Korea.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Jax44” for the heads up.]
Related article:
South Korean court delivers split decision in Apple v. Samsung patent battle – August 24, 2012
