| By Maureen O'Gara |
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| February 4, 2013 06:00 AM EST |
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The European Commission is threatening to charge companies other than Samsung with anti-competitive practices for the way they treat their standards-essential patents and use injunctions to bar rivals from using the patents rather than negotiating fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licenses to the IP as they pledged.
The EC's antitrust chief Joaquin Almunia said so at a press conference in Brussels Wednesday.
He did not identify the firms that may be prosecuted for abusing their market position.
Reuters said the EC is currently investigating patent disputes involving Google (Motorola Mobility), Microsoft, Apple, Huawei, InterDigital and patent enforcement company MOSAID.
Last month Samsung was accusing of FRAND abuse for demanding unreasonable terms from Apple for a license to its standards-pledged mobile patents.
"The decision we adopted in December was to launch a statement of objections to Samsung and maybe some others will follow," Almunia said.
Companies can be fined up to 10% of their global revenues if found guilty of breaching EU competition rules.
