Published: 1/2/14
Publication: The Economic Times
This op-ed discusses the application of India’s Competition Act to breaches of FRAND commitment. It states that “India’s Competition Act is equipped to deal with scenarios where the SEP holder reneges on Frand commitments. This would generally attract the Act’s provisions against ‘abuse of dominance’ (Section 4).” It states that such abuse “includes charging an unfair (read, excessive) price and discrimination between equally placed customers. For example, if the royalty charged is based on the price of the final product, it may be both unfair pricing and discriminatory pricing given that a manufacturer of an ordinary mobile phone would pay a lower royalty as compared to a manufacturer of a smart phone (who pays a higher royalty for the same technology).” The op-ed further states that abuse may also include refusal by a SEP holder “to deal with certain standard implementers such as manufacturers of the patented components ….”