Posted by ipeg on March 16th, 2013
Now European Patent with unitary effect finally got the final blessing, it is time look into some of the details of the EU Regulation “Implementing Enhanced Cooperation in the area of the Creation of Unitary Patent Protection” 1257/2012 (UnitaryPatent Regulation – UPR). We do not mean the unfortunate referral to national law within Art. 5 of the UPR that has previously been called Epic Fail in this blog. Even more interesting is – in particular with respect to a subject we covered many times – “Standardization”...
Posted by ipeg on April 17th, 2012
After the EU Commission has opened a formal antitrust investigation against Samsung a few weeks ago the dispute between the biggest stakeholders in the Telecommunication equipment market recently takes a new turn. The EU Commission has opened two further formal antitrust investigations, this time against Motorola. These investigations are based on complaints filed by Apple and Microsoft. According to these complaints, Motorola has failed to honor its irrevocable FRAND licensing commitments made to standard setting organizations by seeking...
Posted by ipeg on November 10th, 2011
The European Commission has been pretty quiet about antitrust and licensing issues surrounding standard essential patents since the Commission ended its investigations against Rambus and Qualcomm in 2009. Both Rambus and Qualcomm were accused by its competitors of violating European Competition laws by their licensing behavior towards standard essential patents. Allegedly they misused their market dominance by demanding too high royalty rates for the licensing of patents protecting standardized technology, which necessarily must be implemented...
Posted by ipeg on January 14th, 2011
India’s government has recently voted through a new directive on the application of open standards in e-Government. Barely a year after China’s SAC (Standardization Administration of China) drafted its proposal on a Standardization Policy (see our earlier blog: “China drafts all-out national standards IPR policy“) and defined what is meant by a FRAND-licensing approach concerning standard essential IPRs in their opinion (i.e. royalty free or at least marginal royalties for patents included in standards) also India jumps...
Posted by ipeg on November 26th, 2010
The mobile communications industries is encountered by a so far unexampled burst of patent infringement claims. Almost all big market players are either faced with infringement claims driven by competitors or self taking court action. And also a few enterprises, which on the first sight having nothing to do with mobile communications like Eastman Kodak are involved in the quarrel. The recent developments in the industries in particular the rise of so called smart phones which comprise any possible functionality in just one device appears...
Posted by ipeg on August 22nd, 2010
The patent battle between Nokia and German IP asset management firm IPCom illustrates well the lack of practical understanding as to what fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (or FRAND) licensing terms practically means in Europe. IPEG blogged about this earlier. The conflict started at the end of 2006 when IPCom, a company founded by Bernhard Frohwitter and Christoph Schoeller, acquired the patent portfolio developed by Bosch in the late 80s and 90s for its mobile and in-car telephone systems. This portfolio has 160 patent families...
Posted by ipeg on April 1st, 2010
Netherlands’ The Hague District Court Orange-Book decision brings up again the discussion about the compulsory licensing defense and the role of antitrust in patent infringement proceedings. Opposing’s Germany highest court the Dutch Court denies the possibility of responding with a compulsory licensing defense in a patent infringement proceeding. How damaging is it that two major patent courts in Europe differ on such important issues? After all, we are supposed to have a harmonized European legal order in patent cases....
Posted by ipeg on March 19th, 2010
In a combined court case between Philips and SK Kassetten regarding CD- and DVD-technology (CD-R and DVD+R disks), the District Court of The Hague (Netherlands) ruled in favor of Philips, in a case that may revive the discussion about essential patents and competition law defenses (i.e. license under FRAND[1] terms). In our earlier blog we reported on the Orange-Book decision of the German Federal Supreme Court (of 6 May 2009), in which it affirmed the option for the defendant to raise a competition or antitrust …
Posted by ipeg on December 17th, 2009
The recent European Commission decision on Rambus’ alleged antitrust behavior provides interesting insights in what royalty rates offered by Rambus can be regarded as “fair”, “reasonable” and “non-discriminatory”. The antitrust proceedings dealt with the licensing behavior of Rambus Inc. after the adoption of the DDR RAM industry standard by JEDEC. To implement the instructions of the DDR RAM standard, Rambus’ technologies – which are included in this standard – are essential. …
European IP Case Law (IPPT)