The European Union’s antitrust regulator opened two formal investigations to determine whether Motorola Mobility Inc. violated its FRAND commitment to EU’s patent standard-setting organizations by disrupting competition in the EU market with its standard-essential patents for smartphones and other devices. The EC launched these investigations in response to Apple and Microsoft accusing Motorola of unfairly seeking and enforcing injunctions against Apple’s and Microsoft’s flagship products on the basis of patents Motorola had declared essential to produce standard-compliant products.
The EC’s first investigation will examine whether Motorola’s behavior constitutes an abuse of a dominant market position in violation of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU. The EC’s second investigation will evaluate whether Motorola further violated Article 102 by offering unfair licensing terms for its standard-essential patents for 2G and 3G wireless telecommunications systems, H.264 video compression, and wireless local area network technologies.