Blog

News and views on open standards and patents

Blog: News and views on open standards and patents

October 12, 2021

Greenwashing

Climate change is one of the defining challenges of our times. The imperative to improve the way that we collectively treat our planet has spawned a […]
October 5, 2021

Transparency: Disclosing SEPs

Over the past few years there have been differing views on whether and when to disclose an SEP to an SSO. This has often been considered […]
September 28, 2021

According to MPEG LA “license-to-all” is unworkable

Patent pools are a favoured mode of technology sharing. In its 2017 Communication, “Setting out the EU approach to Standard Essential Patents” the European Commission noted: […]
September 21, 2021

The non-discriminatory (ND) limb of FRAND: general non-discrimination

In our recent blog post we explained why the non-discriminatory (ND) limb of FRAND does not mean every licensee is entitled to the same rate, even for similarly situated competitors.   […]
September 14, 2021

The non-discriminatory (ND) limb of FRAND: why it isn’t hard-edged

The non-discriminatory (ND) limb of FRAND does not mean every licensee is entitled to the same rate, even for similarly situated competitors.   In 2017, the UK High Court […]
September 7, 2021

Hold-out should be reflected in the review of the Horizontal Guidelines

As the Commission’s call for feedback on its Inception Impact Assessment (IIA) concerning revision of the two Block Exemption Regulations for horizontal cooperation agreements (HBERs) and […]
September 2, 2021

Examples of Hold-out Strategies

There is a growing practice among certain implementers to adopt ‘hold-out’ strategies, also known as ‘efficient infringement’, whereby they use standardised technologies for as long as […]
August 31, 2021

Litigation is inadequate to address hold-out

The widespread use of hold-out as a business strategy is a growing problem. Unlike other unlicensed uses of IP rights, hold-out strategies are employed based on […]
August 26, 2021

Three misunderstandings about SEP litigation

The widespread use of hold-out as a business strategy is a growing problem. hold-out strategies are employed based on deliberate corporate calculations as to the potential […]
July 29, 2021

How IP rights keep markets free

Jonathan M. Barnett, Professor at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, and Contributor at Forum for Intellectual Property, Hudson Institute, analyses in his […]