International Law

Samsung Gets Whacked

By Stan

Don’t know anything more than this (from JLM):

Samsung was fined RMB 50 million for violating Holley Telecommunication’s GSM/CDMA dual-mode handset patent in the Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court on December 19, reports Sina. The lawsuit was brought to court in early 2007, so the fine covers only part of the more than 700,000 GSM/CDMA dual-mode handsets Samsung has sold to date, said Holly executive director Ge Chen. The ruling also requires Samsung to discontinue production and sales of the handset model, the report said.

And it’ll go to the High Court, I assume.

Would be nice to know more details on this, but that judgment is certainly an eyebrow raiser. You don’t see that everyday. The first question I had was where is this "Holley Telecom" located? For those of you who followed the Schneider patent case, let me pause a moment to give you a chance to figure this out.

OK? Well, as was the case with Schneider, the suit in this case was brought in the hometown of the plaintiff. Does that necessarily mean that we are looking at a case of local protectionism? Anything’s possible, but you have to wonder . . .

Anyway, another case to watch in 2009.

Full post as published by China Hearsay on December 24, 2008 (boomark / email).