[avodeinst]

http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/News/13...le_rivals.aspx

Intellectual property rights may be unfairly used by some firms against their rivals to stifle competition, the EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said this week.

According to Reuters, Almunia told reporters: ‘We requested information from both Apple and Samsung. We have not yet received the answers. We need to look at this because IP rights can be used as a distortion of competition but we will need to look at the answers.

‘In particular, in the IT sector, it is obvious it is not the only case. Apple and Samsung is only one case where IP rights can be used as an instrument to restrict competition. Standardisation and IP rights are two instruments that in this new IT sector can be used as a tool to abuse.’
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given steve jobs declared nuclear war on android - this is the one thing that can concern Apple - the EU have and will fine anyone in an anti- trust suit

last year apple declared a revenue of $63 billion dollers - under EU rules the fine could be as much as $6.3billion.

MS total EU fines stand at $2 billion, which include non complience going back to 2004 and the Intel Anti-Trust case , intel were fined $1.06 billion - the largest to date when found in total breach on the law.