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EU Targets Motorola In Antitrust Investigation Over Standards-Essential Patents
Fluffeh writes "Motorola Mobility has found itself on the receiving end of an antitrust investigation by the European Commission due to its alleged abuse of standards-essential patents related to WiFi, H.264, and 3G wireless networking. The EC investigation comes shortly after it launched a similar investigation of Samsung, which has been attempting to leverage its 3G-related patents against Apple. The investigation could be especially worrisome for Google, which was recently granted approval of its planned merger with Motorola."
Why is it that the only antitrust enforcement I hear about in the EU is against non-EU based companies? Is it really that case that no corporations inside the EU are big enough to be anti-competitive? Or is it that there are cases with EU companies that are not reported very much? Or is it that the EU differentially goes after foreign concerns? I truly have no idea, I was just wondering.
Why is Snark Required?
Samsung was also warned by the EU that their patent attacks on Apple might violate antitrust laws.
It's interesting how the Android manufacturers cry about patent abuse when it is THEY who are running afoul of the laws.
We all know who is behind the complaint, and pretending we don't know slows justice. Did they remember to filter their involvement through a proxy like RBC again? Who knows, or cares. It's all transparent at this point. Did they remember to engage their plausible deniability?
Frankly I don't care any more. The base problem is patent and copyright. If Y'all won't fix the real problem you're doomed to deal with the derivaties of your lack. That's just how it is.
Do away with copyrights and patents and all these suits are moot. Me and the judges can toddle on down to the corner tav for some beers.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I'm really not interested, but hey, First Post.
I'll file an anti-trust law suite against you because there's no way you could have gotten that first post without illegal monopolistic tactics.
I'll counter with a patent infringement suit against you, because there's no way you could have come to that conclusion without infringing upon my methods for determining illegal monopolistic practices via analysis of online posts patent!
And so it is that we see the moral of the story:
Make sure all your patent are for wiggling your fingers when in contact with a screen displaying a picture, or for a shape first popularised in 300 BC.
Actually do expensive research and get patents that mean something, and they will label them "standards essential" and prosecute you when the wiggly fingers and rounded corners bunch try to shut you down.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
Motorola brought this on themselves. When you attempt to unfairly abuse FRAND patents against your market competition, you're eventually going to be investigated for anticompetitive behaviour. They abused their FRAND patents. They're being investigated. And they're going to be found guilty of anticompetitive behaviour and everyone knows it.
And we should be happy about that.
It doesn't matter what you think of Motorola, Apple, Microsoft, Google, or any other company. You may like or hate any of those companies - it doesn't matter. We should all be happy that Motorola's actions are going to be punished because this is precisely the sort of thing that limits innovation in an industry. This isn't about patents limiting innovation - this is about FRAND patents that are essential for involvement in an industry.
If you don't know what FRAND patents are, you should make an effort to understand them because understanding them is vital to understanding this situation.
FRAND patents are essential patents that are part of an industry standard that MUST be licensed to ANYONE who wishes to license them at _Fair, Reasonable, and Non Discriminatory_ rates. When a company gets a patent included in an industry standard, they agree to license them under FRAND terms.
Motorola's actions have not been Fair, Reasonable, nor Non Discriminatory. They have targeted specific companies (that's discriminatory) with excessive licensing demands (ranging from 2.25% up to "your entire non-FRAND patent portfolio" which is not reasonable), all of which is not fair.
You don't have to like or hate any company involved in this to recognize that Motorola is abusing their FRAND patents and everyone should want them to be punished for doing so.
They have abused their FRAND patents. They are being investigated. They will be found guilty of anticompetitive behaviour.
They overplayed their hand and now they are going to face the consequences.
There are more and bigger antitrust enforcements in the EU against European companies, but you don't hear about them in the US media because it's not about the USA.
Put the patents in the public domain, if the older patents are in everything then for the good of the technology and the future ideas that my be put forth from it.
There must be a point that the good of the future ideas out way the short term power from them.
()-()
You mean like "do as the others licensing this stuff does"?
Or do you mean the apple-meaning of FRAND: Let us decide what we pay for it.
PS to the posters and repeaters of "Motorola's actions have not been Fair, Reasonable, nor Non Discriminatory. They have targeted specific companies (that's discriminatory) with excessive licensing demands (ranging from 2.25% up to "your entire non-FRAND patent portfolio" which is not reasonable), all of which is not fair."
Please show that the the actions have not been fair, reasonable or been discriminatory.
After all, I can't afford the patent. That's not fair. And they won't even pass me the contract, that's discrimination.
Problem here is that one company doesn't want (or doesn't HAVE) any mobile phone patents worthy of putting in the pool that all the other FRAND licensees have and did. This other company would rather rate the value of the patents they DO have (on non-essential functionality) above the patents already in the pool, refuse to allow the others to freely license these patents and thereby not pay the same rates as the others.
There is, however, another way to get the patents: don't join the FRAND license pool and buy them under non FRAND rules.
The basic system works, but politicians feel the need to interfere with it at the behest of McKinsey - who may, if you are paranoid enough, have been the stalking horse for the US companies. Labour set ridiculous and disconnected "targets" which invited abuse of the system - just as happened with education in Chicago, as reported in Freakonomics - and the Conservatives keep trying to find ways to stop the "undeserving poor" from benefiting while lining their pockets - I'm sorry, acquainting themselves with what the US companies have to offer.
At the next election, a number of seats will be contested by retired GPs and consultants. This could well mean that the medical profession has the balance of power in a hung Parliament. I like the idea.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Motorola's actions have not been Fair, Reasonable, nor Non Discriminatory. They have targeted specific companies (that's discriminatory)
I haven't read anything about Motorola targeting specific companies. The only other company that I have heard speak out is Microsoft, and according to them they have been paying Motorola the same fees that Motorola has been asking of Apple. The rates may be unreasonable, but they are not discriminatory.
The more that governments, courts and lawyers get involved in the computer industry the higher the costs to the end user. Companies can not be in constant litigation or in taking steps to avoid legal entanglement without passing the cost to the end users one way or another. It doesn't matter if it is hardware, software, or simply regulating transmission or use of products all cost get passed on to the end users. The net may well be the one place where a wild, wild west mentality might be best for everyone concerned. There are also concerns about exactly what steers the law to go after one and not another. For example the punishment of spam operators is so sporadic and rare that it is legal tokenism. So who is to say that legal actions don't have politics behind them when prosecutions are rare?
> Why reinvent the wheel when we can just copy what has, say, already been working quite well for the UK since the end of World War 2?
You might want to follow the UK debate on the state and sustainability of the NHS. Or Germany's debate on its health care. It turns out that the populous European countries have health care systems that aren't exactly the panacea some people believe they are. People are getting older and require care that is far more expensive across their life time than it used to be all while people complain about tax rates.
Okay, so yes, health care is becoming more expensive because demographics are changing.
Not because public health care is inefficient, numerous studies have found that public health care systems are more efficient in terms of treatment on the dollar.
In reality the discussion about public health care systems being expensive, sums up to the question of whether or not everybody should have access to health care. The alternative health care systems are more expensive if everybody should have access. Personally I hope we'll see red banners in the streets before public health care disappears and we see an underclass of poor people who can't afford basic medical care.