77 Bipartisan former antitrust enforcers, academics critique Delrahim on patent holdup
Published: May 17, 2018
Publisher: Competition Policy International (CPI)
On May 17, 2018, an open letter was addressed to Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim by 77 former government enforcement officials and academics, who do not believe his recent speeches on patents and patent holdup “are consistent with the broad bipartisan legal and economic consensus that has existed for over a decade regarding standard setting”.
Qualcomm cuts licensing prices to appease Apple, regulators
Published: April 30, 2018
Publisher: Reuters
Qualcomm Inc. has broadened its use of a lower-cost licensing model for the next generation of mobile data networks, a move that could help in contentious talks with two customers including iPhone maker Apple Inc., the wireless tech company’s patent licensing chief said on Monday.
The patent business traditionally has supplied much of Qualcomm’s profit but has also spurred conflict with Apple, Samsung Electronics Ltd and Huawei Technologies Co Ltd as well as regulators […]
The CJEU guidance in MEO on price discrimination in licensing may also impact FRAND / SEP licenses
Published: April 26, 2018
Publisher: Lexology
Price differentiation is a topical issue. The increasing use of pricing algorithms offers the potential for companies to engage in ‘personalized’ pricing on a mass scale, offering different prices to different consumers based on an algorithmic assessment of the highest price each individual is likely to pay. But they may also facilitate anti-competitive price coordination and so could give rise to concerns (see here and here).
Similarly, as the Internet of Things […]
Industry report – IEEE’s empirical record of success and innovation following patent policy updates
Published: April 25, 2018
Publisher: IAM
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is the world’s largest technical professional organization, with hundreds of thousands of members. As a US-based standard-setting organization (SSO), the IEEE has successfully standardized thousands of fundamental technologies, including critical communications standards such as Wi-Fi and ethernet. In 2015 the IEEE updated its patent licensing policy, which addresses how participants at the IEEE commit to license their standard-essential patents (SEPs), covering IEEE standards on reasonable and non-discriminatory […]
Huawei FRAND case to go ahead
Published: April 23, 2018
Publisher: IP Pro Patents
Huawei and ZTE’s bid to dismiss Conversant’s patent infringement claims has been rejected by the English High Court.
The Chinese companies had argued that the English court was not the right jurisdiction for the patent infringement claim, as the relief sought is the determination of a global fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) license. But in a ruling on 16 April, Justice Henry Carr held that the English court was the “appropriate forum”. […]
FRAND licensing in Germany – view on the recent Dusseldorf decision
Published: April 20, 2018
Publisher: JDSUPRA
The findings from the recent Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf decision Mobiles Kommunikations system have established a new framework that should be followed when courts are benchmarking standard-essential patents (SEP) license offers.
The court has commented on which requirements are to be placed on the infringement notice, the license request and the license offer and how far the court’s examination duty reaches. The decision takes a step toward solutions that balance the interests of […]