The European Commission on Tuesday formally opened a patent abuse investigation into Motorola.
"The Commission will assess whether Motorola has abusively, and in contravention of commitments it gave to standard setting organisations, used certain of its standard essential patents to distort competition in the Internal Market in breach of EU antitrust rules," the EU said in a statement.
The investigation was prompted by complaints from Apple and Microsoft, which accused Motorola of suing over "essential" patents rather than trying to work out licensing deals.
As a result, the commission said today that it will investigate whether Motorola's efforts to get devices like the iPhone, iPad, Windows, and Xbox pulled from store shelves over patent disputes means the company has "failed to honor its irrevocable commitments made to standard setting organizations."
At issue is something known as FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) licensing obligations, which are intended to keep major corporations in check and avoid abusive patent-related behavior. Basically, if a company holds a patent on a technology that is essential to a particular industry, they should make every effort to license that technology, even to major rivals.
Apple and Microsoft claim that Motorola has not made that effort. Bloomberg reported yesterday that Motorola demanded $4 billion per year in royalty payments from Microsoft related to its Xbox console. Thus, the second part of the commission's investigation will focus on whether Motorola offered unfair licensing conditions.
In a statement, Motorola said it is "confident that a thorough investigation will demonstrate that it has honored its FRAND obligations and complied withantitrust laws. MMI will continue to work closely with the European Commission to resolve this matter as soon as practicable."
The move comes several days after commission vice president Joaquin Almunia said during a speech in Washington, D.C. that he was "considering" whether to investigate Motorola for patent abuse.
Almunia said it is "unacceptable" for owners of smartphone-related essential patents to "effectively hold up the entire industry with the threat of banning the products of competitors from the market."
The EU is already investigating Samsung on similar grounds, which will "make sure that the company has not failed to honor the commitments it [made] back in 1998 to make its standard-essential patents for mobile phones available in fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms," Almunia said.
Microsoft filed its complaint against Motorola (and its almost-owner Google) with the commission last month. Apple, meanwhile, asked a European standards body to come up with basic rules for how it handles licensing of wireless standard patents.