Looks like the European Commission just put bit of a damper on Samsung's Friday. As noted by Reuters, the EU has decided to charge Samsung Electronics with abuse of its standard essential patents against its competition. The Commission has told Samsung that it doesn't believe that the company is acting fairly. "Intellectual property rights are an important cornerstone of the single market," Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a statement on today's decision, adding that those rights "should not be misused when they are essential to implement industry standards, which bring huge benefits to businesses and consumers alike."
The EU has been investigating Samsung since January, and it appears that the Commission has found enough evidence in the time since then to accuse Samsung of abusing its standard essential patents rather than licensing them out fairly. Samsung has yet to issue a statement on the EU's accusation, though the company likely isn't thrilled with being charged by the Commission. It's worth noting that Samsung recently dropped all of its pending injunction requests against Apple in Europe, a move that very well could have been an attempt to avoid charges like these. It'll certainly be interesting to see how Samsung responds to the Commission's charges, so stay tuned and we'll update you as soon as we hear more.
UPDATE: The European Commission has posted an official press release concerning its decision to charge Samsung. It explains that the Samsung patents involved in the Commission's accusations relate to the 3G UMTS standard and that, in 2011, Samsung began to target Apple with injunction requests claiming that Apple had infringed upon those 3G patents.
