The Korean Fair Trade Commission recently ruled in favor of Samsung in yet another round of Samsung-Apple legal clashes over intellectual property rights. Apple took Samsung to court on the basis of violating the Korean Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Law. Samsung holds what is known as a Standards-Essential Patent (SEP), which is a patent for a technology that is essential to a widely adopted standard. As such, in order to comply with the standard, one would need to purchase a license from Samsung.
Apple made the complaint that Samsung was using this SEP to exercise monopoly power in the South Korean markets, but the KFTC ultimately found Samsung not guilty of this action. This Korean ruling is probably not in favor of consumers because Samsung truly does dominate using this patent. In fact, this ruling is against the tide of rulings by the US DoJ, the Free Trade Commission, and the EU on the subject of standards essential patents. It will be interesting to see what the repercussions of this ruling are for South Korea's free market, since Samsung will be given even more market control and ability to dominate.
Source: http://www.fosspatents.com/2014/02/korea-fair-trade-commission-clears.html
Apple made the complaint that Samsung was using this SEP to exercise monopoly power in the South Korean markets, but the KFTC ultimately found Samsung not guilty of this action. This Korean ruling is probably not in favor of consumers because Samsung truly does dominate using this patent. In fact, this ruling is against the tide of rulings by the US DoJ, the Free Trade Commission, and the EU on the subject of standards essential patents. It will be interesting to see what the repercussions of this ruling are for South Korea's free market, since Samsung will be given even more market control and ability to dominate.
Source: http://www.fosspatents.com/2014/02/korea-fair-trade-commission-clears.html
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