What Is FRAND?

FRAND is the acronym for fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory. It generally arises in antitrust cases where an owner of intellectual property rights (IPR) refuses to grant a licence or refuses to grant a licence on FRAND terms. 

Failing or refusing to license IPR on FRAND terms can be an infringement of the EU's antitrust rules.  For example, the EU Commission recently sent a statement of objections to Motorola Mobility over its attempt to enforce a patent injunction against Apple in Germany (i.e. the Commission has come to the preliminary conclusion that Motorola has infringed the antitrust rules).  The patents in question relate to GPRS, a part of the GSM standard, which is used to make mobile phone calls. Motorola accepted that the patents were standard essential patents and had, therefore, agreed that they would be licensed to Apple on FRAND terms. However, in 2011 Motorola tried to take out and enforce an injunction against Apple in Germany based on those