European Commission proposes Standard Essential Patent Licensing Regulation
European Commission Author EmDee Licence CC BY-SA 4.0 Source Wikipedia Commons Jane Lambert In the last few years, there has been a spate of litigation throughout the world between businesses that have acquired large portfolios of patents that are essential for compliance with a manufacturing standard which are known as "standard essential patents" ("SEP") and the world's consumer electronics manufacturers known as "implementors" who want to use their patents. Standard setting institutions such as ETSI require the proprietors of SEPs to license their patents to implementors on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory ("FRAND") terms. Such an arrangement ought to work very well. As Mr Justice Marcus Smith said in Koninklijke Philips NV v Asustek Computer Inc. and others [2020] EWHC 29 (Ch) (17 January 2020) at paragraph [7 (4)]: "Standard Essential Patents can be of great value to their holders. Holders can expect a substantial