“EU regulators are poised to accuse Samsung of breaking competition rules in filing patent lawsuits against rival Apple, in the EU’s first formal challenge to the consumer electronic industry’s patent wars,” Ethan Bilby reports for Reuters. “‘We will issue a statement of objections very soon,’ the European Union’s competition chief Joaquin Almunia said on Thursday, referring to the Commission’s charge sheet.”
“The filing of competition objections is the latest step in the Commission’s investigation. After notifying Samsung in writing the company will have a chance to reply and request a hearing before regulators,” Bilby reports. “If the Commission then concludes that the firm did violate the rules, it could impose a fine of up to 10 percent of the electronic firm’s total annual turnover.”
Bilby reports, “In August Apple won a major victory in the smartphone patent war when a jury in a California federal court ordered Samsung to pay $1.05 billion in damages. The court found Samsung had copied critical features of the iPad and iPhone.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: In our best Nelson Muntz voices, “Ha ha!”
Stop the FRAND abuse, slavish copier! Have some pride (of course, if Samssungorea had any pride, they wouldn’t have churned out blatant iPhone and iPad knockoffs in the first place). Abusing standard-essential patents in order to cover obvious design patent and trade dress infringement is just weak and sad.
String ’em up, EC!