Standards And Patents

The United States National Academies' STEP (Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy) Board today (October 15, 2013) published a new report entitled Patent Challenges for Standard-Setting in the Global Economy.  The report, as summarized in an email announcing its publication, has four parts:

(1) A survey of a dozen key SSOs in the ICT arena to ascertain how their IPR policies have evolved;
(2) Recommendations to SSOs and the USG re the thorny issues of FRAND interpretation, terms of SEPs disclosures, transfer of FRAND obligations with patent ownership, transparency of patent ownership, and the availability of injunctive relief on SEPs with FRAND obligations;
(3) Examination of standards and IP policy development in China, India, and Brazil; and
(4) Discussion of the relevance to the USPTO of the European Patent Office’s information sharing arrangements with the IEEE, ITU, and ETSI.

In 2012, Linda Kahl and I were commissioned by the National Academies to write a report entitled Synthetic Biology and Intellectual Property as part of the process leading to Patent Challenges for Standard-Setting in the Global Economy, and our report will soon be published in The Santa Clara Computer & High Technology Law Journal.