Posts Tagged: "standard setting organizations"

A disturbing trend has recently emerged whereby an alleged lack of transparency associated with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) intellectual property rights database (IPR Database) is being used in support of antitrust allegations and to propose radical changes to the fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing framework for 3G, 4G and 5G wireless technology. But is there really such a transparency problem or is this yet another attempt to tilt balance of power in favor of implementers and excuse hold-out? 

A close examination of SEP databases reveals that a large number of patents that have been declared SEPs are not essential…. Patent owners are obliged to declare the patent as essential even if they are doubtful about its essentiality. Unfortunately, a few patent owners may intentionally proclaim many of their patents to be essential to gain benefits or a business advantage. In practice, there are multiple reasons potentially essential patents and patent applications might be rendered non-essential. For example, a patent could be granted with amendments that cause it to be no longer essential. Whenever implementers bargain for the licensing fees, they must examine whether certain patents are actually essential, which can stall negotiations and lead to litigation.

Courts around the world have determined appropriate methodologies for calculating damages on standard essential patents (SEPs) for which patent holders have made an assurance to license on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. Determinations of patent holdup, licensee holdout, use of worldwide portfolio licensing, incremental value rule, etc. are included in these decisions. The court determines damages based on the below-referenced judgments and FRAND terms when reviewing SEP infringements. Under most patent laws, infringement damages are set based on factors including actual loss due to infringement, if the actual loss is difficult to determine, gains of the infringer, and if both actual loss and gains are not available—determination of appropriate multiples of a reasonable royalty fee. 

I recently became frustrated after reading an essay in the AIPLA newsletter by an attorney with Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP on the topic of the new USPTO-DOJ-NIST Joint Policy Statement on Remedies for Standards-Essential Patents Subject to Voluntary F/RAND Commitments. I have seldom seen a writing where I disagree with everything a man writes, with the exception of a joke and his name. I took it apart paragraph by paragraph; my comments follow in red, while the author’s original text is in black.

Standard Setting Organizations (SSOs) exist to identify and select the best innovations entire industries will build upon. Those contributing patented technologies are asked to provide fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory assurances. In essence, patent owners contributing technologies are committing to provide access to their Standard Essential Patents (SEPs). Whether one thinks it is good or bad, it is an inescapable truth that over the last decade the patent system in the United States has become weakened. The weakened patent system, and a patent grant the Supreme Court now considers to be a “government franchise,” has shifted leverage from patent owners to technology implementers. Amidst this uncertainty, in September IPWatchdog.com held a two-day symposium to discuss the state of standard essential patents in the United States. During this symposium, overwhelming consensus was achieved by the Patent Masters™ faculty and symposium attendees on a variety of principles and recommendations.

Speaking at IPWatchdog’s Patent Master’s Symposium today, Professor Kristen Osenga of The University of Richmond School of Law gave attendees a glimpse of her upcoming paper examining problems with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers – Standards Association’s (IEEE-SA) 2015 amendment to its intellectual property rights (IPR) policy. In reference to the title of the panel on which she was speaking, “Balance, Transparency & Reasonableness: Converging Approaches to SEP Licenses and FRAND Royalties,” Osenga explained that “balance transparency, and reasonableness simply were not part of the process” by which IEEE adopted the new policy. Osenga’s paper, which is due to be published on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) by the end of 2019, will examine the actions leading up to the adoption of the 2015 amended policy, as well as the aftermath. Below is an abstract of the paper; many of the issues it will touch upon were also covered in Osenga’s 2018 paper, “Ignorance Over Innovation: Why Misunderstanding Standard Setting Organizations Will Hinder Technological Progress.”

Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) are patents that are unavoidable for the implementation of a standardized technology. They represent core, pioneering innovation that entire industries will build upon. These patents protect innovation that has taken extraordinary effort to achieve. Standard Development Organizations (SDOs) exist as a mechanism for industry innovators to work together to collectively identify and select the best and most promising innovations that will become the foundation for the entire industry to build upon for years to come. Those contributing patented technologies to the development of a standard are asked to provide a FRAND (which stands for Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory) assurance, in essence committing to providing access to patents that are or may become essential to the implementation of the standard.

Qualcomm was not refusing to abide by its agreed to promises to license SEPs as required by the SSOs, as alleged by the FTC. Instead, Qualcomm wasn’t interested in licensing competing chip makers who wanted to used Qualcomm’s technology so they could make their own chips incorporating Qualcomm’s patented technology. Licensing competing manufacturers of chips is not what the IP policies of the SSOs require. What is required is that patent owners of SEPs not discriminate against applicants desiring to utilize the license for the purpose of implementing the technology. But that isn’t what a competing manufacture would be doing. A competing manufacturer would be creating the chip that enables, not implementing the technology into an end product. In fact, as Qualcomm pointed out, industry practice of SSOs is to require licensing only fully compliant end-user devices, and not components.

The Federal Circuit, however, found the district court’s enforceability finding to be unsupported by evidence. The rejection of Nokia’s proposal did not obviate Nokia’s requirement to disclose inventions that might be essential to the standard. Dr. Walker’s uncontroverted testimony explained that patent applications are to be disclosed at the time proposals are presented. “[A]n ETSI member’s duty to disclose a patent application on particular technology attaches at the time of the proposal and is not contingent on ETSI ultimately deciding to include that technology in an ETSI standard,” Bryson explained. Notwithstanding, the Federal Circuit elected to vacate this ruling rather than electing to reverse the district court because the existence of an implied waiver is an equitable defense.

Increasingly, Delrahim’s speeches are moving past where he began in his USC speech in November 2017, discussing this being the appropriate time to now have a discussion about the proper role antitrust enforcement plays with respect to standard setting, to his LeadershIP April 2018 speech where he explained the Antitrust Division will not hesitate to enforce against collusive anticompetitive conduct detrimental to patent owners. Furthermore, Delrahim has now several times discussed his view that in a free market, competition based economy the remedy for patent owners violating obligations to SSOs is a contractual remedy, not an antitrust remedy.

On November 10, 2017, the Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) new top antitrust enforcer, Assistant Attorney General (AAG) Makan Delrahim, delivered a powerful speech on antitrust law and policy enforcement towards intellectual property rights (IPRs). Former USPTO Director David Kappos described it as “the most important DOJ antitrust speech on IP during my decades practicing law”. … The speech clarifies that the new AAG views “any policy proposals with one-sided focus on hold-up with great skepticism because they pose a serious threat on the innovating process,” and submits that antitrust law should not be misused to police the private commitments such as FRAND that IP holders make to SSOs. In this, the speech agrees with the view shared by several scholars that FRAND commitments are contracts and a potential breach of those commitments may not be best suited under the purview of antitrust law and that “there are perfectly adequate and more appropriate common law and statutory remedies available to the SSO or its members”.

The debate on royalty payments for standard essential patents has a surprisingly emotional, sometimes even hostile, undertone. Companies selling standards-based products have an obvious commercial interest in lower royalty rates, but for some participants in the debate the hostility goes deeper. Some people find the idea of having to pay royalties for the use of any standard objectionable and unreasonable.

The debate on RAND terms and conditions is mostly about the reasonability of the royalty rate, less about non-discriminatory part. So, what is a “reasonable rate”? Companies that manufacture products based on a standard will demand lower rates or royalty-free licenses, claim harm from patent hold-ups and from royalty stacking. These companies will argue that it is unfair when companies that contribute technology to the standard benefit from the lock-in of the standard because it is now unavoidable to use the essential patents in their products. On the other hand, companies that participated in standards development, and own essential patents because of that investment, claim that lower royalty rates will remove the incentives for future investments in standard setting and will stifle innovation. In the confusion generated by these lobbying interest groups, it makes sense to go back to the one thing everyone seems to agree on: Standards are good.