By Ethan Bilby
BRUSSELS, Dec 20 (Reuters) - The European Commission is set
to charge South Korean electronics group Samsung in an antitrust
patent case, the European Union's competition chief Joaquin
Almunia said on Thursday.
The EU competition watchdog is investigating whether Samsung
broke EU competition rules by filing patent lawsuits against
Apple.
"We will issue a statement of objections very soon," Almunia
said, referring to the Commission's charge sheet.
Apple and Samsung, the world's top two smartphone makers,
are locked in patent disputes in at least 10 countries as they
vie to dominate the lucrative mobile market and win over
customers with their latest gadgets.
On Tuesday, Samsung said it was dropping an attempt to stop
the sale of some Apple products in Britain, France, Germany,
Italy and the Netherlands, though it did not say it would halt
its court battle for compensation.
In August, Apple was awarded $1.05 billion damages after a
U.S. jury found Samsung had copied critical features of the iPad
and iPhone. The Samsung products run on the Android operating
system, developed by Google.
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