Korean manufacturer, Samsung has run in to trouble again with the European Commission announcing this Tuesday that they are formally opening investigations into Samsung’s competitive practices.
Samsung is being accused of using certain of its standard essential patent rights to distort competition in the European market. Samsung which has been locked in an intense patent battle with Apple has earlier made attempts to get the latest iPhone 4S blocked out from certain markets of Europe.
Interestingly, Samsung had actually tried unsuccessfully to get the Apple iPhone 4S banned in various countries in Europe over violation of the WCDMA standard, which according to Samsung was being used by Apple without having it licensed from them.
Though, it’s not clear if Samsung is in direct violations of the promise it had made to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) in 1998 wherein they had assured that they would license certain essential standard patents owned by them under the Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory terms (FRAND).
It is also unclear whether WCDMA is one of the essential patent that falls under the FRAND agreement. There might be a heavy penalty coming Samsung’s way if they are indeed found to be guilty of any violations of the said agreements.
