Korea Fair Trade Commission issues correction order to Dolby Labs for unfair trade practices
( August 5, 2015, 04:31 GMT | Official Statement) -- MLex Summary: The Korea Fair Trade Commission issued a correction order on Wednesday to Dolby Laboratories Inc. for unfair trade practices relating to the licensing of its standard-essential patents in the audio encoding and compression sector. The KFTC determined that the company used its market dominance for its AC-3 audio compression format to force companies into signing unfair licensing contracts, where Dolby made it difficult for other companies to challenge intellectual property and ownership rights, and restricted the sublicensing of contracts acquired by partner companies. Certain clauses in the contracts also had provisions that would permit termination of licensing agreements if the user tried to claim infringement or misused its IP rights. The KFTC said that its action against Dolby will help to create a fairer market in the sector. The regulator said it will continue to monitor companies that use industry-standard technologies to abuse their market positions.The regulator's full statement, in Korean, is attached....
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