Motorola now officially being investigated for abusing its patents in Europe

April 3, 2012

Both Apple and Microsoft have formally complained about Motorola’s alleged abuse of “standards-essential” patents, and today the European Commission has been equally formal in starting an antitrust investigation into their claims. In fact, there’ll be two separate investigations — one to discover whether Motorola Mobility failed to honor its FRAND obligations when it sought injunctions against the sale of Apple and Microsoft products, and the other to assess whether Motorola has been unfair in the way it has offered to license its standard-essential patents. The authorities have given no clue as to how long this process could take, or what kind of punishments could be meted out at the end of it, but the (almost) Google-owned company is now certainly in for some tumult.