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DoJ Investigating Samsung For Patent Abuse
sl4shd0rk writes "Good news for Apple, bad news for Samsung. Yesterday, Apple filed legal papers with the International Trade Commission citing a Department of Justice investigation into whether Samsung is misusing its 'Standards essential' patents in ways which violate antitrust law. Apple claims Samsung has violated commitments to license its essential patents to competitors on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. Or, more specifically, Samsung is 'using certain patents as a basis for improper legal actions that seek to block the sale of competitors' products.' The article says Google (because of its recent acquisition, Motorola Mobility) is under the same scrutiny."
Again, you miss the point. I assume that is because you are emotionally vested in this (swearing doesn't make you sound more forceful, just more emotional) and your emotions must be clouding any sense of consistent logic. The "it's not fair" argument works well for little kids, but this is more of an adult topic than playground teasing. It's about business, law, etc.
Apple never agreed to charge a reasonable price for the pinch and zoom patent. They applied for it, and were granted it. If you have issue with them getting that patent fine (I don't like it was granted to them either, and I agree its a stupid patent in the first place, however... that is another conversation). The fact remains is they were granted it, and it is not a patent they agreed to license at a fair price. Samsung however did agree to license certain patents at a fair price, and they are trying to charge some vendors (who compete more aggressively and charge them a lot for patents, e.g. Apple) significantly different terms than others. In other words, it would appear they are trying to "get back at apple" by abusing patents they agreed they wouldn't abuse.
It doesn't matter if Apple charges a billion dollars a phone for pinch and zoom. They never agreed to license it to anyone in the first place. If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at the USPTO office, but not Apple for leveraging their IP. Samsung and Google's abuse of patent essential patents risks upending all standards for everyone. If they can abuse them, why can't everyone who holds a patent essential patent. Once you open that door, who would ever develop a product using standards... you risk $$$$$$ abuse once the standard is established.
Being controlled by your emotions when making decisions can be a very reckless thing... i'd suggest you take a longer look at your miss-guided opinion.
Apple is of the opinion that they do not owe any licensing fees because those fees have already been paid by their parts supplier. This decision has been affirmed by every court that's reviewed it. Samsung continues to file injunctions to ban sales of Apple products even though it is quite clear they don't have a winnable case in court. At this point, it makes perfect sense for Apple to sue them over these lawsuits, Samsung can't possibly really believe they will ever win one of these cases, and they're really just using them to harass Apple in retaliation for Apple's own (winnable) lawsuits.
With regard to the article you linked: if you actually read the judges ruling, rather than Groklaw's questionable interpretation of it, you will notice that the ITC judge is simply claiming that the ITC does have jurisdiction.
With regard to the notion that Apple should have made a counter offer: since Apple feels they owe nothing, what counter offer would you propose they make? They can't go that rout, because in doing so they would have to give up the patent exhaustion argument (that their chip supplier has already paid the appropriate licensing fees and Samsung has no legal right to ask for fees from Apple) which is not a realistic possibility.
Finally, this judge has said that there's no evidence to back Apple's assertion that the fees Samsung was asking are excessive. It may be true that Apple didn't present evidence to that effect, but Samsung was asking for nearly $15 per iPhone, which is probably more than Apple paid for the RF chips that use Samsung's FRAND patents. It's hard to see how you could consider that a reasonable price.