Samsung recently received a complaint from the European Union over antitrust laws and their patent dispute with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). According to Bloomberg, the South Korean-based tech giant will face charges and could face the music early next year.
Joaquin Almunia, antitrust chief for the EU, claimed the following at Thursday’s press conference, “We will adopt the statement of objections very soon.”
Although the EU was generally accepting of Samsung’s decision to withdraw a couple of their lawsuits, there is still a lot of concern regarding Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:005930)’s other plans to harm competition. Almunia added that the European Union will further investigate Samsung,
Bloomberg was the first to report this and in this report, they added:
Samsung’s injunction requests in Europe triggered the EU antitrust investigation to examine whether the company violated agreements to license standards-essential patents to other mobile-phone manufacturers on fair terms. Under phone industry standards, companies owning the rights to essential technology must license it to competitors on fair, reasonable and non- discriminatory terms, known as FRAND.
This all comes after an earlier ruling in the United States in which Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) lost their bid to block Samsung’s products from being sold in the United States. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) added the following statement:
Samsung remains committed to licensing our technologies on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, and we strongly believe it is better when companies compete fairly in the marketplace, rather than in court. In this spirit, Samsung has decided to withdraw our injunction requests against Apple on the basis of our standard essential patents pending in European courts, in the interest of protecting consumer choice.
Florian Mueller (executive for Foss patents) reminded us that Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:005930) is still suing Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in hopes of receiving financial compensation.
