L’applicazione dell’articolo 102 TFUE alle azioni inibitorie su standard “essential patents”

One of the most hotly debated competition law topics is the application of antitrust rules to standards and, more specifically, to injunctions on standard essential patents. A peculiar feature of this debate is the opposition between different views both within the academic literature and between national judges and the European Commission practice. Eventually, the questions raised by the standard setting scenario have reached the CJEU scrutiny, through the referral carried out by German judges in the Huawei case. Therefore, the CJEU ruling is an occasion to analyze the application of article 102 TFEU to standard essential patents. An interesting aspect of the decision is that the European Court of Justice regards the injunction for SEPs as a form of “derivative” abuse, based on a previous abusive refusal to license. Moreover, so called “de facto” standards are not included in the scope of the Huawei ruling, although their features do not appear to justify a different treatment under 102 TFEU. It also seems then that the Huawei ruling will raise a new wave of uncertainty, instead of setting a clear solution to the problem of injunctions, since it places the concept of FRAND at the very heart of the test. An alternative way of applying article 102 TFEU is proposed in the last part of the work.

Uno degli argomenti più dibattuti in materia di diritto industriale è l’applicazione delle disposizioni antitrust agli standard di produzione e, più in particolare, all’esercizio dei brevetti coinvolti nella definizione delle norme tecniche. Il dibattito ha visto contrapposte non solo varie voci all’interno della dottrina giuridica ed economica ma anche i giudici nazionali e la Commissione europea. Le questioni sono, infine, giunte all’attenzione della Corte di Giustizia, attraverso il deferimento pregiudiziale proposto dai giudici tedeschi nella vicenda Huawei. La sentenza della Corte di Giustizia è dunque l’occasione, colta in questo scritto, per esaminare l’applicazione dell’art. 102 TFUE ai brevetti essenziali negli standard di produzione.