EU Started Samsung, Apple Probe Into Patents on Own Initiative

European Union regulators started an antitrust probe into Samsung and Apple’s use of smartphone patents on their “own initiative” without waiting for a competitor to formally raise the issue.

Per Hellstroem, the head of the European Commission’s antitrust unit for consumer electronics, said that the EU’s “preliminary investigation” is trying to determine the underlying facts about Apple’s and Samsung’s use of patents. “There’s no formal complaint,” Hellstroem said. “When we see that there are issues that may” potentially “involve competition issues we have the power to send requests for information to various parties.” Samsung and Apple were questioned by the commission about “the enforcement of standards-essential patents in the mobile- telephony sector,” regulators said earlier this month. Apple said in a filing in a California court case last month that Samsung faced an EU antitrust investigation into its “egregious” misuse of patents.