Hasta La Gadget!

The European Commission has delivered a “statement of objections” to Samsung’s leadership, in which it claims that Samsung was abusing its standard-essential patents in preventing Apple from making use of the same. Providing written notice is the next step in the EC’s investigation of Samsung, which began due to the Korean company’s many injunction requests and lawsuits filed in EU member states against Apple, and which isn’t going away despite Samsung having dropped all of its injunction requests in EU countries.

From here, the next step is for Samsung to formally reply to the charge from the EC, and ask for a hearing in front of regulators to defend its position. Once the Commission makes its judgement on the violations, following any defence mounted by Samsung, the gadget maker could face a fine up as much as 10 percent of its annual sales. The patents in question are related to 3G UMTS wireless communication, which Samsung had agreed to license with fair terms to its competitors in Europe.

“Intellectual property rights are an important cornerstone of the single market. However, such rights should not be misused when they are essential to implement industry standards, which bring huge benefits to businesses and consumers alike,” Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in statement released to Reuters on the subject.

This all began with the EU opening its investigation back in January. At the time, it explained that the reason for the investigation was due to Samsung’s pursuit of “injunctive relief in various Member States’ courts against competing mobile device makers based on alleged infringements of certain of its patent rights which it has declared essential to implement European mobile telephony standards.” Samsung tried to defray any potential fallout of this by dropping its requests for said “injunctive relief” earlier this week. That hasn’t stopped the formal charges, but it may help Samsung plead its case when it responds to this written request, helping it to eliminate or lessen any potential fine that might result.

The European Commission is well aware that we need spectrum. Rather than make everyone fight for their piece, though, the agency wants us to hug it out. It’s proposing a spectrum change that would bring in “much more dynamic sharing” of both licensed and unlicensed radio frequencies. While nothing’s definite at this point, the EC’s Digital Agenda representative Ryan Heath mentions that the move could give more capacity to WiFi in the unlicensed 5GHz space — no doubt a relief for anyone who’s dealt with an overwhelmed public hotspot. That’s not to say that carriers won’t benefit. Officials want to provide perks by offering “guaranteed rights” to providers and anyone else that has to share licensed airwaves with others. The sharing initiative is a long distance away from having an impact given that the Commission is calling for help from the European Council and Parliament just to get started, but it could be an important step towards harmony in a land where unoccupied airwaves are rare.

Filed under: Wireless, Networking

European Commission pushes for spectrum sharing, sees 5GHz WiFi getting a lift originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Sep 2012 04:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google knows that there’s a looming EU antitrust lawsuit if it doesn’t volunteer some kind of change to its search practices, so it’s not entirely surprising that chairman Eric Schmidt has sent a letter offering a settlement to the European Commission’s competition chief Joaquin Almunia. The details of just what that potential truce entails are under wraps, although Almunia has long broadcast his concerns that Google might be unfairly favoring its own services above those of others — he’d be most happy if the results were more organic. It’s hard to say whether or not Google is prepared to follow along, but a peace gesture is a sharp break from the company’s previously firm view that there’s no need to change. We wouldn’t be surprised if the EU’s recent success in fining Microsoft has left Google hesitant to take its chances in court.

Google offers to settle with EU over antitrust gripes, olive branch now fully extended originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Jul 2012 14:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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