“Samsung Electronics has offered to stop taking rivals such as Apple to court in Europe over patent disputes in order to end an antitrust investigation, European Union regulators said on Thursday,” Foo Yun Chee reports for Reuters.
“The move, which may help defuse a long-running patent war between the world’s biggest mobile operators, comes after the European Commission said that Samsung’s patent lawsuits broke European Union antitrust rules,” Chee reports. “It may also help Samsung avert a possible fine that could reach $18.3 billion.”
Chee reports, “The Commission, which also charged Google’s Motorola Mobility with a similar anti-competitive practice in May, said the Samsung case would bring clarity to the mobile telephony industry.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Clarity:
1. Samsung, Google et al. ripped off Apple’s myriad inventions wholesale and then tried to sue Apple over standard-essential patents (SEPs) which are meant to be licensed under fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.
2. Samsung et al. did this because they were dead in the smartphone/tablet markets if they did not due to Apple’s revolutionary product. Google did this because they got greedy and, instead of working with Apple as they did initially, they wanted to control the market themselves – with Apple’s innovations.
3. All of these companies abused FRAND by tying Apple up in court for years with SEPs they had no business suing over. This threat of imminent death in certain markets due to the enormity of Apple’s innovations does not excuse their actions. These companies should be made to rue the day they turned criminal in order to survive in the smartphone/tablet markets.
