WASHINGTON, DC — August 5, 2013 —
BSA | The Software Alliance today commended US Trade Representative Michael Froman for carefully evaluating and deciding to disapprove a market exclusion order issued by the US International Trade Commission in a case brought by Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. against Apple, Inc. (ITC Investigation No. 337-TA-794).
The case involved standard-essential patents that Samsung voluntarily chose to make available for licensing on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.
"Ambassador Froman made the right decision in this case," said BSA Government Affairs Director Tim Molino. "Market exclusion orders might be appropriate remedies in some cases, but generally not when it comes to FRAND-encumbered standard-essential patents."
"As we argued in our public comments on the investigation, all patentees should be free to exercise and enforce the full breadth of their intellectual property rights as they see fit. It should be their choice, for example, whether or not to submit their patented technologies to become part of internationally recognized standards," Molino said. "But if they make the choice to participate in creating such a standard and in the process commit to licensing their technologies on FRAND terms, then they should not be allowed to circumvent that commitment by using the Commission to obtain an exclusion order which could result in extracting unreasonable royalties."