J. Almunia,
here.
From the speech: " Fair and robust competition rules mean – among other things – integrating those markets which, in practice, continue to operate at national level; promoting innovation; encouraging the restructuring of mature European industries; and fighting against protectionism" and "(R)ecently we have seen a rise in the strategic use of IPR. Take for example the mobile communications industry, where it seems that everybody is suing everybody else for patent infringements, often to block certain products from entering the market.
I have instructed my services to look closely into how intellectual property rights are used; for instance, we have recently asked Apple and Samsung to send us information on their patents for smartphones.
Our enforcement practice has also taught us that IPR strategies may be a concern also in the pharmaceutical industry.
In addition, we will soon be launching a stakeholder survey on the operation of the current antitrust regime of technology transfer agreements, which will expire in 2014.
An important issue will be to assess whether innovation is being properly disseminated to industries and consumers under the current regime."
