Samsung Offers Patent Cease-Fire in EU

dryriver sends this quote from the BBC: "Samsung has said that it will stop taking rivals to court [in the E.U.] over certain patent infringements for the next five years. The white flag in the patent battle has been raised because the South Korean electronics firm faces a huge fine for alleged abuses of the system. The move could help end a long-running patent war between the world's largest mobile makers. The E.U. said that a resolution would bring 'clarity to the industry'. 'Samsung has offered to abstain from seeking injunctions for mobile SEPs (standard essential patents) for a period of five years against any company that agrees to a particular licensing framework,' the European Commission said in a statement. Standard essential patents refer to inventions recognised as being critical to implementing an industry standard technology. Examples of such technologies include the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), a cellular standard at the heart of 3G data; and H.264, a video compression format used by YouTube, Blu-ray disks and Adobe Flash Player among others. The E.U. had accused the Samsung of stifling competition by bringing a series of SEP lawsuits against Apple and other rivals."

Re:The EU must like expensive toys

[currently_awake]

So they stop the abuse, once. Now change the system to stop ALL the abuse. Make mandatory generic licensing a requirement of the patent system. And set the royalty rates to prevent abuse (FRAND). This is the only way to allow the inventor to benefit but without holding back civilization by the unreasonable.

FRAND seems like a happy case of...

[ravenlord_hun]

...prisoner's dilemma. Throwing your patents under FRAND means they are essentially not yours anymore; sure, you get paid something, but because of how "fair and reasonable" can be interpreted, it's probably really difficult to enforce anything. HOWEVER, if you do not do that, another company might offer a FRAND patent and turn that into an industry standard instead. And then you end up with a worthless patent.

It's good to know all our standards are only based on companies unable/unwilling to cooperate properly.

Re:What's the point of a patent then?

[JesseMcDonald]

Some people consider nationalisation of private property to be a pretty drastic measure.

Sure, and that would be relevant if we were talking about private property, as opposed to patents.

On the other hand, far too many people don't seem to have a problem with nationalization of actual private property in the form of, say, taxable income, so perhaps the underlying premise is incorrect. If they can nationalize part of your income, which is your by natural right, they can certainly nationalize a few patents which only exist by their say-so in the first place.