By Aoife White - Jan 31, 2012 6:48 PM GMT+0700
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Samsung today lost a bid to overturn a German sales ban on its Galaxy 10.1 tablet computers obtained by Apple Inc. in an intellectual property dispute. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg
Apple Inc. and Samsung have filed lawsuits against each other in at least 10 countries, according to Samsung. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) is being probed by European Union antitrust regulators over licensing of patents to other mobile-phone manufacturers.
The European Commission said it will investigate whether Samsung broke a 1998 commitment to license any standard essential patents for phones on “fair, reasonable and non- discriminatory terms.” It acted after Samsung claimed last year in European courts that rivals infringed its patents, the EU said in a statement.
Regulators have increased scrutiny of intellectual property rights, with EU antitrust chief Joaquin Almunia saying last month that he wanted to ensure patents weren’t used to block rivals’ expansion. He is also probing Honeywell International Inc. and DuPont Co. over chemical patents and is looking into standards in the banking industry.
The commission “has opened a formal investigation to assess whether Samsung Electronics has abusively, and in contravention of a commitment it gave to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, used certain of its standard essential patent rights to distort competition in European mobile device markets,” the Brussels-based agency said in an e-mailed statement today.
James Chung, a spokesman for Samsung in Seoul, Korea, declined to immediately comment.
November Quizzing
The EU said in November that it was quizzing Samsung and rival Apple (AAPL) Inc. over the use of patents. Both companies were sent requests for information about “the enforcement of standards-essential patents in the mobile-telephony sector,” the EU said at the time.
Alan Hely, a spokesman for Apple in London, declined to comment. Cupertino, California-based Apple said in a U.S. court filing in October that Samsung faced an EU probe into its “egregious” misuse of patents.
Apple and Samsung have filed intellectual property lawsuits against each other in at least 10 countries, according to Samsung. The legal battle between Apple and Samsung, its closest competitor in tablet computers, has intensified as consumers use devices such as tablets and smartphones to surf websites, play games and download music.
Samsung today lost a bid to overturn a German sales ban on its Galaxy 10.1 tablet computers obtained by Apple in an intellectual property dispute.
To contact the reporter on this story: Aoife White in Brussels at awhite62@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net.
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