S. Han, here.
Monday, May 06, 2013
EU Commission sends Statement of Objections to Motorola Mobility on potential misuse of mobile phone standard-essential patents
Press Release, here.
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Apple's "willingness" specified:
"Apple had declared that it would be willing to be bound by a determination of the FRAND royalties by the German court". Further, from the Memo:
"By contrast, a potential licensee which remains passive and unresponsive to a request to enter into licensing negotiations or is found to employ clear delaying tactics cannot be generally considered as willing."
Moreover, specifically to the relevance of the so-called German "Orange Book" case-law on injunctions:
"The 2009 "Orange Book" ruling of the German Supreme Court established that a potential licensee can raise a competition law defence against an application for an injunction by showing that (i) it has made an unconditional offer to license under terms that cannot be rejected by the patent-holder without abusing its dominant position, and (ii) it actually acted as if had entered into a valid patent licence. The Supreme Court's ruling did not specifically relate to SEPs. The Commission's preliminary view is that an interpretation of that ruling whereby a willing licensee is essentially not entitled to challenge the validity and essentiality of the SEPs in question is potentially anti-competitive."
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Apple's "willingness" specified:
"Apple had declared that it would be willing to be bound by a determination of the FRAND royalties by the German court". Further, from the Memo:
"By contrast, a potential licensee which remains passive and unresponsive to a request to enter into licensing negotiations or is found to employ clear delaying tactics cannot be generally considered as willing."
Moreover, specifically to the relevance of the so-called German "Orange Book" case-law on injunctions:
"The 2009 "Orange Book" ruling of the German Supreme Court established that a potential licensee can raise a competition law defence against an application for an injunction by showing that (i) it has made an unconditional offer to license under terms that cannot be rejected by the patent-holder without abusing its dominant position, and (ii) it actually acted as if had entered into a valid patent licence. The Supreme Court's ruling did not specifically relate to SEPs. The Commission's preliminary view is that an interpretation of that ruling whereby a willing licensee is essentially not entitled to challenge the validity and essentiality of the SEPs in question is potentially anti-competitive."
Copyright in the Digital Era: Building Evidence for Policy
US National Research Council of the National Academies, here.
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Reuters, here . I remember a time when these were the topics discussed in the EU too...
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Cour de cassation. ici.
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Eurostack, here. It's more regulation ;-)
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Antimonopoly.ca, here.