Authored by standards experts from across industry, academia and private practice, this book serves as a resource for standards development organizations (SDOs), the lawyers who advise them and other participants involved in the process. It is a comprehensive set of annotated, policy-neutral language that can be instantly accessed and utilized by SDOs who are developing new patent policies or those looking to refine or interpret existing policies.

Authored by standards experts from across industry, academia and private practice, this book serves as a resource for standards development organizations (SDOs), the lawyers who advise them and other participants involved in the process.

Technical standards are ubiquitous in the modern networked economy. They allow products made and sold by different vendors to interoperate with little to no consumer effort and enable new market entrants to innovate on top of established technology platforms. This groundbreaking volume, edited by Jorge L. Contreras, assesses and analyzes the legal aspects of technical standards and standardization. Bringing together more than thirty leading international scholars, advocates, and policymakers, it focuses on two of the most contentious and critical areas pertaining to standards today in key jurisdictions around the world: antitrust/competition law and patent law. (A subsequent volume will focus on international trade, copyright, and administrative law.) This comprehensive, detailed examination sheds new light on the standards that shape the global technology marketplace and will serve as an indispensable tool for scholars, practitioners, judges, and policymakers everywhere.

Patent Challenges for Standard-Setting in the Global Economy: Lessons from Information and Communication Technology examines how leading national and multinational standard-setting organizations (SSOs) address patent disclosures, licensing terms, transfers of patent ownership, and other issues that arise in connection with developing technical standards for consumer and other microelectronic products, associated software and components, and communications networks including the Internet. Attempting to balance the interests of patent holders, other participants in standard-setting, standards implementers, and consumers, the report calls on SSOs to develop more explicit policies to avoid patent holdup and royalty-stacking, ensure that licensing commitments carry over to new owners of the patents incorporated in standards, and limit injunctions for infringement of patents with those licensing commitments. The report recommends government measures to increase the transparency of patent ownership and use of standards information to improve patent quality and to reduce conflicts of laws across countries.

Written by a global group of leading scholars, this wide-ranging Research Handbook provides insightful analysis, useful historical perspective, and a point of reference on the controversial nexus of climate change law and policy, intellectual property law and policy, innovation policy, technology transfer, and trade. The contributors provide a unique review of the scientific background, international treaties, and political and institutional contexts of climate change and intellectual property law. They further identify critical conflicts and differences of approach between developed and developing countries. Finally they put forward and analyse the relevant intellectual property law doctrines and policy options for funding, developing, disseminating, and regulating the required technologies and their associated activities and business practices. The book will serve as a resource and reference tool for scholars, policymakers and practitioners looking to understand the issues at the interface of intellectual property and climate change.

What is the licensing framework of standard essential patents (SEPs) for connectivity standards such as 5G and Wi-Fi? How will the framework change with the Internet of Things (IoT)? This book provides comprehensive answers to these questions. For over two decades, connectivity standards have been the subject of litigation and controversy around the globe. Now, with the introduction of 5G and the emergence of the world of connected objects, or the IoT, the licensing framework for SEPs is becoming even more contentious. In order to bring clarity to the debate, this book analyses and explains key components of a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licence for SEPs; clarifies the economic, policy and market background of SEP disputes; examines the interrelated application of contract, patent and competition laws; and describes the approaches by courts and regulators in the EU, US and the UK. Importantly, the book also assesses how the experience from the smartphone and ICT industries can be applied in a new environment of the IoT, and considers what needs to be changed in the future SEP licensing landscape. The book provides a holistic coverage of SEP licensing issues in an attempt to reduce uncertainty within this highly complex and technical area, and will be useful to practitioners, policy makers, SMEs and large technology companies in the IoT, as well as academics interested in the field.