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Showing posts from March, 2024

IP Backed Funding

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  Jane Lambert The World Intellectual Property Organization has published reports on unlocking IP-backed funding in China , Jamaica , Singapore , Switzerland  and the UK . The report on the UK was launched yesterday in London by Viscount Camrose , Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for artificial intelligence and intellectual property and Daren Tang, Director-General of WIPO on 19 March 2024 (see the Intellectual Property Office's press release Report launched into UK's IP-backed finance landscape   19 March 2024). The report, which can be downloaded as a PDF from the WIPO website consists of 47 pages of text organized in the following sections: Acronyms (common abbreviations such as "HMRC" and "SME"); Glossary Executive Summary The United Kingdonm's Journey  Types and Sources of IP Funds for equity investment and lending The Legal and Regulatory Framework for UK Finance covering accounting standards and financial regulation as well as law Non-regula

Patents: a New Resource Hub on Standard Essential Patents in May and HMG's other Proposals on FRAND Licensing

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Intellectual Property Office Crown Copyright 2007  Open Government Licence v3.0     Jane Lambert A standard essential patent ("SEP") is a patent that has to be worked in order to comply with a technical standard.  Organizations that set such standards (known as standards-setting organizations or SSOs) require SEP proprietors to promise to license the use of their patents to businesses that want to make or distribute products that comply with those standards ("implementers") on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory ("FRAND") terms as a condition for including their patents within the standards. On paper, this looks like a very fair arrangement and in theory, it should work very well but in fact, it doesn't.   One problem is that implementers use a standard without paying any royalties or licence fees to the SEP owners arguing that their patents are invalid or not essential for compliance with the patent.   Another is that SEP owners and implementers h