The European Commission is beginning a formal investigation on Samsung’s use of its mobile patents. Specifically, the EU is trying to decide whether Samsung abuses some of the broad patents it holds to “distort competition in European mobile device markets, in breach of EU antitrust rules.”
Basically, this will determine if Samsung uses patents to file lawsuits against other companies to kill off its competition or at least weaken it. The EU cites an example of one of Samsung’s lawsuits from 2011: Samsung sued mobile phone competitors in numerous courts last year for infringing on its telecommunications patents which it deems necessary to remain in accordance with European mobile telephony standards.
The European Commission is jumping in to find out if Samsung, by filing this lawsuit and other similar ones, broke an agreement with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute dating back to 1998 that states the company must license any patents relating to these standards. This allows for FRAND terms and competition: fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory.
Samsung made this commitment in Europe along with a few other wireless patent owners when 3G technology first hit the masses in Europe.
Even outside of Europe, Samsung was a busy bee in 2011 in terms of lawsuits. The company was on both the offense and defense for an overwhelming number of patent claims. Apple was one of Samsung’s biggest opponents last year.