For those unfamiliar with FRAND terms, it’s basically where companies agree to license patents out to one another under Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory terms (FRAND). Not all patents are covered under FRAND, but rather patents that are considered to be standard essential, meaning that without it, the entire product would not work at all.
Well it looks like over in Japan, the Japanese courts have found that Samsung has abused their FRAND patents against Apple. This was actually decided back in 2013, but Samsung appealed the ruling in which the court of appeals in Japan had to convene a “Grand Panel” to hear the case. Unfortunately it looks like the Grand Panel decided that the original ruling should stick, which basically found Samsung guilty of abusing their FRAND patents in their case against Apple.
The patent in question was related to the 3GPP mobile standard, and saw Samsung demand an obscene amount of royalties from Apple, as well as seeking an injunction against the infringing devices, like the iPhone 4. However the court ruled that Samsung had no right to demand a sales injunction and also the company’s request for “excess royalty”.
Instead, the courts capped Samsung’s licensing demand to around $95,000 which is pretty much what Apple had expected to pay for the patent’s license in the first place. In a statement released by Apple’s Japanese subsidiary, “We offer high praise that the court took the corresponding actions [against] Samsung [and] was resolute to try to protect the integrity of the international patent system. In an attempt to convince the court that the patent is not an issue, Samsung has recklessly ignored intellectual property rights around the world.”