Published: 4/29/14
The European Commission determined that “Motorola Mobility’s seeking and enforcement of an injunction against Apple before a German court on the basis of a smartphone standard essential patent SEP) constitutes an abuse of a dominant position prohibited by EU antitrust rules.” The Commission explained that FRAND commitments are “designed to ensure effective access to a standard for all market players and to prevent ‘hold-up’ by a single SEP holder.” The Commission determined that seeking an injunction against a willing licensee of a FRAND-encumbered SEP “could risk excluding products from the market” and “lead to anticompetitive licensing terms that the licensee of the SEP would not have accepted absent the seeking of the injunction. Such an anticompetitive outcome would be detrimental to innovation and could harm consumers.”