Samsung Offers Patent Cease-Fire in EU 80
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh grow up.
Apple's patents can all be worked around. However Standards Essential Patents (as indicated by their very name) cannot.
This is why any company that abuses the ones they have (such as Samsung) is a big deal.
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and the solution that would have been used is to invalidate the patents by the EU (nuclear option) if Samsung did not quit abusing. They've also been put on notice that any further abuse of SEP's will result in the patent being invalidated by the EU, thus ending any and all lawsuits in regards to said patents.
This has the benefit of informing the Corps that Abuse of the Courts and the System will no longer be tolerated while reducing the time and money wasted not only by the courts but the victims of the ab
Re:The EU must like expensive toys (Score:5, Interesting)
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nd the solution that would have been used is to invalidate the patents by the EU (nuclear option) if Samsung did not quit abusing.
I think the threat of a 13.7 BILLION Euro fine was slightly more nuclear. Plus obviously any attempt to enforce these patents would be illegal, no matter whether the patents were valid or not.
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The solution would have been for Apple to be slapped, hard, when it started claiming that nobody could build tablets or phones anymore even though none of their patents were technically "essential". Then it would have never escalated to that point. However neither the US nor the EU managed to achieve even basic common sense with regards to Apples rampant abuse of the courts, and are focusing on the Korean company instead.
This coming after Obama stepped in personally to ensure Apple wouldn't have to pay up?
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It looks like they should have waited.
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Apple's patents can all be worked around.
Oh, really?
"Round Corners"
How are you going to design around that one Sherlock?
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Never abused SEP patents covered by FRAND promises. No. They haven't.
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I'm no fan of the patent wars, but if Samsung played by the rules and filed for patents on the technology before somebody else did, then I don't see how they can be fined for using the legal leverage that goes along with it.
I agree, so maybe it's the system that's broken, and the EU is trying to patch around it (however, since they're still politicians, they most likely won't fix the underlying issue).
How expensive would phones be if micro USB were a single manufacturer's spec to be licensed rather than some industry-agreed standard?
Just like it happened with FireWire, nobody would use it.
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I'm no fan of the patent wars, but if Samsung played by the rules...
Yeah, but the rules for Standards Essential Patents are a bit different, because anti-competitive behaviour laws enter the picture much more easily. And then things quickly get very complicated, I think the general intent of EU here is: play fair with SEP, agree on a fair licensing price, work it out, or else...
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Re:What's the point of a patent then? (Score:4, Insightful)
Some people consider nationalisation of private property to be a pretty drastic measure.
Re:What's the point of a patent then? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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Legally, patents are property. That doesn't mean I agree or disagree with the concept of intellectual property - more it's a different discussion. The equivocation you've drawn, with taxes and patents, can lead down a pretty dark road. Why should anyone be allowed to own anything that has both existed before and will exist long after the demise of the property holder?
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I have to agree there. Patent law as it applies to an inventor as opposed to a corporation, which is lifeless, and potentially very long lived (read: centuries), has twisted the original intent of a patent and it's purpose. As to governments taking a FRAND patent from the owner, it would also discourage any company from entering their patents as FRAND patents. This is done voluntarily now. If a government forced a company to surrender such patents, then the industry overall would suffer.
Misguided android fa
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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.
Something just doesn't sit right in your analogy - in this case, nationalization of "property/cash" (aka tax) isn't a judicial punitive measure, it's a generally agreed-upon, and well known code. The best way is for them to both fine Samsung and invalidate their patents. That's well in their power, since patents are just government granted monopolies (supposedly time-limited, but there are ways around that).
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That's an incredibly tortured attempt to bring two unrelated fields together - as you well know from your need to use quotes.
Re:What's the point of a patent then? (Score:5, Insightful)
What I'm wondering, is if the patents are so essential to an industry, why doesn't the government just come in and say "Hey Samsung, we're taking your patent. You are free to continue to use it without paying us any licensing fees, but we will also license it out to who ever we choose"? What is the benefit of letting Samsung keep the patent vs the method I just described?
No, Samsung is supposed to get a fair and reasonable license fee for these patents. And standard essential patents are not standard essential by magic. They are standard essential because a standard was created that uses the patent, and the patent holder agreed to it being included in the standard.
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The point of the patent sytem is not to make people pay royalties, but to create an incentive for inventors -- if the inventor gets neither the royalties (by licensing the patent) nor the monopoly (by not licensing the patent), there's no incentive, no matter whether those using the patented invention make royalty payments to some other entity or not.
If you've already taken away the inventor's incentive, what possible reason is there for the government's licensing fee?
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There (probably) are no laws which would allow that... I hope so at least.
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a design (eg trade dress) patent is different from a "invention" patent, and should not be talked about as if they were the same thing.
Re:What's the point of a patent then? (Score:5, Informative)
You've actually just made the case against Samsung.
Samsung did some really good technical work, which almost everyone wanted to copy, so they agreed that the patents involved were "Standards Essential Patents" which would be licensed to everyone cheap. Changing their minds and saying "OK, everybody bat Apple can use those patents," was simply something they agreed they weren't allowed to do when they agreed to have the patents declared standards. Basically they were trying to force their #1 competitor out of their #1 market, and the legal system is not supposed to tolerate that shit. Just look at Apple and it's conviction for eBook price-fixing.
OTOH Apple did a bunch of decent technical work, and some truly mind-blowing design work. Then they sued people on the basis of the design patents. Since they never agreed not to do that, and it was trivial for Samsung to design it's way around said patents once they realized that courts enforce design patents, Samsung got it's ass reamed in court and nobody is worried that Samsung will be forced out of the smartphone market.
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A design patent covers the appearance of a product only, so it's really more like a trademark. The goal is to protect their signature look from copying. You don't have to invent new technology to get around the patents, you just have to make it look different.
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OTOH Apple did a bunch of decent technical work, and some truly mind-blowing design work. Then they sued people on the basis of the design patents. Since they never agreed not to do that, and it was trivial for Samsung to design it's way around said patents once they realized that courts enforce design patents, Samsung got it's ass reamed in court and nobody is worried that Samsung will be forced out of the smartphone market.
As an example of working around design patents, look at Samsung Galaxy S3 and later. You always hear the "Apple patented rounded rectangles" brigade screaming, but fact is that the S3 with its rounded corners does _not_ infringe on Apple's design patent, and Samsung actually has its own "rounded corner" design patent for the S3, so if Apple (fat chance) or anyone else copied it, Samsung could successfully sue them.
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Samsung did some really good technical work, which almost everyone wanted to copy, so they agreed that the patents involved were "Standards Essential Patents"...
That's not quite accurate.
Samsung did some really good technical R&D work. The industry's standards body was establishing an industry standard and asked companies to suggest ideas for inclusion in this standard. Samsung, along with other companies, offered their technology into this industry standards process, all with the promise of offering their patents under FRAND terms. The standard was established.
The patents didn't become a Standards Essential Patent because everyone used it. It became SEP becaus
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Strictly speaking it's not a new price. It's the old price they have always been legally required to charge their competitors for these particular patents.
The entire issue here is that they agreed to license these patents on very liberal terms as a way to get everyone using their tech, and then when they realized that one of their competitors had better tech then them (Apple) they tried to take that deal away from that competitor.
It's a trap! (Score:1)
Uuh, yeah, and what happpens after those five years? Your competitors have taken advantage of those five years to freely produce products with these patents, and all of a sudden your promise of no legal action runs out. Do they A) completely dump all of those products and start equivalent technologies from scratch, B) grudgingly stump up for renewed licenses or C) give Samsung
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So many ACs who don't understand the issue.
The patents they're taking about are "Standards Essential patents." Samsung long-ago agreed to license those patents on very good terms to anyone wanted to use them. This was a way to get their tech in pretty much every phone built. Then they realized their phones were such close copies of iPhone that they cou7ld not sell them, and they decided to sue Apple on the basis of these patents.
In other words they were NEVER allowed to sue anyone using these patents as lon
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Requiring cross licensing as a condition of licensing a FRAND would violate the (F)air and (Reasonable) piece of the puzzle. By their very nature, only one company can own a patent, so every person wanting to license FRAND patents can't offer the same cross licensing. Allowing a FRAND owner to pick and choose the cross licensed patents they require in order to license a FRAND patent is by it's very nature, anticompetitive. Although a company might opt to cross license, it cannot be made a condition of licen
Just wait (Score:2)
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Sure, but all that will do is limit the supply of goods to one relatively limited Asian market, right? I mean, Korea is pretty big, but not as big as the EU or China.
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Korea is smaller then either four individual countries in the EU. It's 1/10 the population of the EU. It's economy is based on exporting shit.
The Koreans do not win a tariff battle with the EU. The US and Japan might be able to force a draw in a tariff battle with the EU. But nobody else could win a tariff battle with the EU. It is a bigger economic bloc then the US.
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FYI, the EU consists of quite a few countries, not just four.
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That's like featherweight champion telling Tyson in his prime he could kick his ass in the ring. It's not a very smart move. Especially considering that South Korea is far more reliant on exports to EU than vice versa due to economic structure of each country.
What we'll likely (not) see, but what will happen behind the closed doors is diplomatic wrangling with some member states to put pressure on European Commission. Impact of such action would be far more limited on both ends, and will give South Korean g
Translation (Score:2)
The EU is about to notice that the patent system is broken and before they take the next step and even consider fixing it, we'll just lie low 'til they got there attention elsewhere, the LAST thing we need is them finding out that 9 out of 10 of our patents are for trivialities which could lead them to invalidate them.
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Actually the existence of SEPs itself is a sign of a broken system - if a patent is essential to entering the market in an entire industry, how the HELL is it still valid?! Patents are there to provide a head start for the inventor (or whoever owns the patent or a licence), nothing more.
This is a result of two colliding processes. The patent owners (as with all other IP) would love to have their exclusive rights last longer and will lobby for it. At the same time the world has been constantly speeding up. D
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Standard essential patents [SEP] are different. When a standard is being defined, pa
Yeah, But... (Score:5, Insightful)
"We agree to stop abusing SEP patents for five years. And then, once those five years have passed, we will return to abusing them as we have which lead us to this point."
How about Samsung stop abusing SEP patents and honour their FRAND promises. Period.
They're offer appears nice, on the face of things, but it is hollow in the long run. The EU response should be simple - you've broken your FRAND promises and abused your SEP patents. You are fined an enormous amount and if it happens again, you will be fined an enormous amount again until you understand that FRAND promises are vital to the industry's ability to grow and develop and breaking those promises undermines the entire foundation of Standards Essential Patents. Stop abusing them - drop every single SEP-based lawsuit against every manufacturer and do not launch another lawsuit seeking damages nor injunctions for SEP patents ever again - or be fined. Period.
So long as manufacturers can wield SEP patents that are covered by FRAND promises as a weapon, there's serious damage being done to the industry. If you want to use your patent as a weapon against your fellow manufacturers, don't offer them up to a standards body for inclusion in an industry standard and don't promise to license them under FRAND terms. You are under no obligation to do so. This situation isn't forced upon you. There are reasons companies want their patents in an industry standard, even with the FRAND limitations, and there are reasons companies want to keep patents close to their chest. Pick one. You can't have both. Attempting to have both is an abuse of SEP patents and a breach of FRAND promises.
Non-story (Score:1)
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
Which is basically how it works now.
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In theory.
In practice if you piss them ioff by suing them they counter-sue your ass even if you paid the SEP fee.
FRAND seems like a happy case of... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's good to know all our standards are only based on companies unable/unwilling to cooperate properly.
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...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.
Sounds like competitive bidding for including into the standard. Being part of a major standard will mean millions or billions of units, whereas if it's not included, it's pretty much up to your company to monetize on it's own.
Do you want to be a small fish in a big pond, or a big fish in your own pond? Yet, not all that many companies are complaining about the situation.
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I know it's popular to imply that FRAND patents have no value but they have enormous value - they create a consistent, long term revenue stream since any company involved in the industry almost certainly will make use of that industry standard technology and thus will license the patent.
That enormous value is different from non-FRAND patents which have their value in being able to selectively license the patents or not, as you choose, and to license for whatever rate you and the other party can agree upon.
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And don't forget that's often the desired goal as well - to get people to work around your patent so your pro
Not Apple? (Score:1)
Wait... I thought Apple was the only one abusing the patent system. Is it possible that the righteous indignation aimed against Apple should be aimed just as much against their competitors? Can't be.
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The reason Samsung is using its cellular technology SEP patents against Apple is that Apple (unlike basically every other mobile device company on the planet) refused to agree to the standard terms for licensing the patents (a broad cross-licensing deal). And then when Samsung offered an alternative that Samsung claimed was fair and reasonable (a per-unit royalty on devices) Apple rejected that too. Hence Samsung suing.
If Apple would agree to the same terms everyone else in the industry has licensed these S
Abusing the system (Score:3)