Zingales, N orcid.org/0000-0001-7717-2247 and Kanevskaia, O (2016) The IEEE-SA patent policy update under the lens of EU competition law. European Competition Journal, 12 (2-3). pp. 195-235. ISSN 1744-1056
Abstract
In 2015, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Standardization Association made some controversial changes to its patent policy. The changes include a recommended method of calculation of FRAND royalty rates, and a request to members holding a standard-essential patent to forego their right to seek an injunction except under limited circumstances. The updated policy was adopted by the IEEE Board of Directors after obtaining a favourable Business Review Letter by the US Department of Justice, which found any potential competitive harm from the policy to be outweighed by potential pro-competitive benefits. In this paper, we examine whether the same favourable conclusion would be reached under EU competition analysis. After discussing the role of patent policies of standard-setting organizations and the rules and principles applicable to the IEEE's activities, the paper concludes that standardization agreements based on the updated policy may constitute a violation of article 101 TFEU.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. |
Keywords: | standard-setting organizations, standard-essential patents, licensing policies of SSOs, EC guidelines on horizontal cooperation, horizontal agreements |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Law (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 22 Aug 2019 10:54 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 21:57 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor & Francis |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/17441056.2016.1254482 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:150001 |