Samsung offers settlement to EU

Samsung Electronics has made an offer to the European Union to settle a claim that the Korean company violated antitrust law.

“Samsung has been in constructive dialogue with the European Commission regarding its investigation into standard essential patents,” the company said in an e-mailed statement to the Korea JoongAng Daily.

The European Commission, the EU’s antitrust regulator, told the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer in December that it may have violated competition rules by seeking injunctions against Apple products in various countries based on essential technology patents, so-called standard-essential patents, or SEPs, that it owns.

EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a speech in New York Friday that Samsung sent “a set of commitments” to address the issue after “lengthy discussions.”

“We will formally market test these proposed commitments with other market participants in the coming weeks,” said Almunia.

Samsung hopes its proposals will help solve the matter, although it did not elaborate on them.

“We believe our proposals will provide appropriate resolution to reduce uncertainties surrounding SEPs and confirm our long-standing commitment to fair and reasonable licensing of our technologies,” the company said. “We will continue to invest in our intellectual property rights to promote innovations to benefit consumers and the industry.”

The EU is cracking down on patent abuses as Google Inc.’s Motorola Mobility Holdings unit, Microsoft Corp., Apple and Samsung trade victories in divergent court rulings across the world on intellectual property. Almunia has said he is targeting “rules of the game” to prevent companies from unfairly leveraging their inventions to thwart rivals.

If the commission concludes that the commitments address its concerns, “we will take a commitment decision which would - I believe - bring clarity on SEPs and injunctions across the industry,” Almunia said.

BY MOON GWANG-LIP, BLOOMBERG [joe@joongang.co.kr]