Japanese court rules Samsung abused FRAND patents against Apple
Apple made legal progress in its battle with Samsung over patents in Japan this week when the Tokyo District Court ruled that Samsung had indeed illegally abused its Standards Essential Patents to demand a sales ban and excessive royalties against the iPhone maker.
Samsung had sought to use its patents related to the 3GPP mobile standard to win significant royalties against Apple, in addition to an injunction against sales of iPhone 4, in a Japanese case similar to the one the South Korean firm brought against Apple via the U.S. International Trade Commission (a case that was vetoed by the Obama Administration).
In Europe, Samsung was similarly blocked from seeking sales bans against competitors in cases that involved a Standards Essential Patent (SEP) following an E.U. investigation into the company's behavior.
In Japan, Samsung's parallel efforts to leverage a patent obtained during the development of open standards and then weaponize it against its competitors has now been shot down in a major policy ruling on the abuse of SEPs in that country.
Second, the court determined that Samsung had declared its "E-bit patent" to be essential to practicing the 3GPP mobile standard, but then subsequently attempted to win a preliminary sales injunction against Apple with that patent. Courts worldwide have recognized that sales bans are in inappropriate remedy in SEP cases where the two parties are simply negotiating a FRAND license.
Third, the court found that Samsung did not disclose its E-bit patent to the ETSI standards body until about two years after its 3GPP working group adopted the "invention" claimed by Samsung in its patent as part of its standard that any phone manufacturer would have to license in order to make a functional device.
The court agreed that Samsung had no right to demand a sales injunction, and struck down company's efforts to win "excess royalty" against Apple, ruling instead to cap Samsung's licensing demand to 9.9 million Yen ($95,000 U.S.) for the patent, which is inline with what Apple had expected to pay as a FRAND licensee.
Apple's Japanese subsidiary released a comment on the ruling, which stated (via machine translation):
'We offer high praise that the court took the corresponding actions [against] Samsung [and] was resolute to try to protect the integrity of the international patent system. In an attempt to convince the court that the patent is not an issue, Samsung has recklessly ignored intellectual property rights around the world.'
Outside of the U.S., E.U. and Japan, Samsung has been successfully backed by one country's antitrust authority in its practice of leveraging SEPs against competitors: the South Korea Fair Trade Commission, which issued a ruling in February that protected Samsung from a complaint filed by Apple.
Samsung had sought to use its patents related to the 3GPP mobile standard to win significant royalties against Apple, in addition to an injunction against sales of iPhone 4, in a Japanese case similar to the one the South Korean firm brought against Apple via the U.S. International Trade Commission (a case that was vetoed by the Obama Administration).
In Europe, Samsung was similarly blocked from seeking sales bans against competitors in cases that involved a Standards Essential Patent (SEP) following an E.U. investigation into the company's behavior.
In Japan, Samsung's parallel efforts to leverage a patent obtained during the development of open standards and then weaponize it against its competitors has now been shot down in a major policy ruling on the abuse of SEPs in that country.
Samsung's anticompetitive patent abuse, in three ways
Last year, Japanese courts found Samsung had abused SEPs in three ways. First, by failing to honor its duty under Japanese Civil Code to negotiate with licensees in good faith, given that its SEPs were created under a commitment to offer other firms licensing under Fair, Reasonable and Non Discriminatory (FRAND) terms.Second, the court determined that Samsung had declared its "E-bit patent" to be essential to practicing the 3GPP mobile standard, but then subsequently attempted to win a preliminary sales injunction against Apple with that patent. Courts worldwide have recognized that sales bans are in inappropriate remedy in SEP cases where the two parties are simply negotiating a FRAND license.
Third, the court found that Samsung did not disclose its E-bit patent to the ETSI standards body until about two years after its 3GPP working group adopted the "invention" claimed by Samsung in its patent as part of its standard that any phone manufacturer would have to license in order to make a functional device.
Apple wins again in landmark Japanese decision
Following the original decision, Japan's court of appeals convened a "Grand Panel" to hear the case, which involved two hearings and called for public comment. A total of 58 amicus briefs were submitted for the court to consider, which the court described as "valuable and informative" in making its ruling.The court agreed that Samsung had no right to demand a sales injunction, and struck down company's efforts to win "excess royalty" against Apple, ruling instead to cap Samsung's licensing demand to 9.9 million Yen ($95,000 U.S.) for the patent, which is inline with what Apple had expected to pay as a FRAND licensee.
"Samsung has recklessly ignored intellectual property rights around the world" - Apple
Apple's Japanese subsidiary released a comment on the ruling, which stated (via machine translation):
'We offer high praise that the court took the corresponding actions [against] Samsung [and] was resolute to try to protect the integrity of the international patent system. In an attempt to convince the court that the patent is not an issue, Samsung has recklessly ignored intellectual property rights around the world.'
Outside of the U.S., E.U. and Japan, Samsung has been successfully backed by one country's antitrust authority in its practice of leveraging SEPs against competitors: the South Korea Fair Trade Commission, which issued a ruling in February that protected Samsung from a complaint filed by Apple.
Comments
YES.
Why aren't I surprised?
There are still legions in denial believing that Motorola and Samsung are going to win cases and set precedents via FRAND abuse. For that matter they deny any abuse to start with.
Why doesn't Samsung just give up and cut it's losses? They haven't really won anything to date. At some point they'd have to realize they're never going to win no matter where they are.
So long as Samsung is making tens of billions of dollars infringing on the IP of others, and knowing they will get fined what? A billion dollars?? That's just an expense on their P&L. The cost of doing business.
There was an article posted from Vanity Fair not too long about detailing how Samsung's corporate atmosphere is based off of ripping people off and dealing with it later... if at all. Shameful company, with a convict as the chairman, bribing the SK government. Shameful.
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2014/06/apple-samsung-smartphone-patent-war
Why doesn't Samsung just give up and cut it's losses? They haven't really won anything to date. At some point they'd have to realize they're never going to win no matter where they are.
It seems that winning in court was never their goal. That Vanity Fair article that someone posted a link to a few threads back did a good job explaining their strategy. The lawsuits and appeals process takes so long, and Samsung is so deep pocketed, that they're basically telling Apple, sue us; even if you win, we still got away with it, and all you can ask for is damages in arrears, and even then we can whittle that down in appeals. The one thing civil juries cannot do is tack on a sufficiently high punitive component to the amount owed to discourage recidivism. So Samsung is getting away with it, in the end; it just cost them a little more than zero dollars to copy.
What do you mean? Where has Samsung has been the plaintiff? As the defendant it behooves them to fight back and to continue to profit off the IP of others.
Wake me up if DED ever writes a balanced article.
Don't bother waking up since it's obvious that reality is too much for you to handle.
...This is NOT an article. It's news.
Or is reality too unbalanced for you?
But wait, you have yet to have Gatorguy educate you on why this is an incorrect ruling.
Don't bother waking up since it's obvious that reality is too much for you to handle.
Looking at his short post history, he seems to have a hate boner for DED.
Don't forget the article from Mic Wright (kernelmag.com) "Samsung: power, corruption and lies", posted here by [@]Steve Constance[/@] who started a thread but didn't get any reactions on it. Since the Kernel is in makeover mode, I posted the article there, if that's ok with AI(?)