On Saturday, August 3rd, American President Barack Obama took a bold step as he decided to step in and not allow the U.S International Trade Commission (ITC) to go through with their decision to ban Apple from selling their numerous products which included the iPhone 4 and iPad2. This came as a result of the seemingly never ending war of patents between the two giants of consumer electronics and information technology: Samsung and Apple. Fortune’s report stated the underlying reason why President Obama decided to overrule ITC decision of banning these products was the strong dissent of an ITC judge.
Dean Pinkert, the ITC commissioner, spoke with an open mind and believes that his colleagues at ITC were wrong when they decided to prevent Apple from selling a few of its finest products. He gave a few reasons why he thinks this way and why he thinks that the decision was not so wise.
Among the reasons he cites:
“The patent in question was part — and only a tiny part — of an international standard, and as such Samsung had agreed to make it available for licensing under terms that are fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND).
Samsung had made no effort to demonstrate that the licensing terms it offered Apple “satisfied an objective standard of reasonableness.”
That the only time Samsung made such an offer — in oral discussions in December 2012 — it came with strings attached to which Apple could not agree.”
What those strings were are blacked out in the document, but Pinkert adds in the next sentence: “it is neither fair nor non-discriminatory for the holder of the FRAND-encumbered patent to require licenses to non-FRAND-encumbered patents as a condition for licensing its patent” (emphasis his).
Samsung got the bitter end of the situation and thus its market value went down by an astonishing $1 billion as a consequence. They seemingly used standard-essential patents (SEPs) so as to force Apple to license its non-essential patents so that they can get an SEP license from its counter-part Samsung.
FOSS Patent’s Florian Mueller, showed his intentions very clearly when he received a copy of Pinkert’s dissent:
“I’m outraged. The underlying rationale of the ITC ruling is a serious threat to innovation and competition. Among other things, it represents a radical departure from well-established antitrust principles concerning the illegal practice of tying”. He further points out that “This totally runs counter to the ITC’s mission to protect the domestic industry.”
President Obama and his administration further went on to ask Samsung that if they felt the decision was in any way biased or if it still thinks that the case needs to be pursued as is their right, the company can take Apple to court if the need arises.
Source: iPhone In Canada
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