NIPC News

Department for Science, Innovation and Technology Author bryan...   Licence CC BY-SA 2.0   Source Wikimedia Commons Jane Lambert   In Patents: a New Resource Hub on Standard Essential Patents in May and HMG's other Proposals on FRAND Licensing ,  I wrote on 5 March 2025: "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." I added that in theory such a condition looks very fair and ought to work very well but in many cases it doesn't.  That is because implementers delay paying fees until a c...

Standard YouTube Licence Jane Lambert On 5 March 2024, I wrote in  Patents: a New Resource Hub on Standard Essential Patents in May and HMG's other Proposals on FRAND Licensing   that the IPO guidance document Standard Essential Patents: 2024 forward look  promised an online SEP Resource Hub by May 2024 which would be a repository of tools, guidance and other material designed to help SMEs navigate what the IPO called "the SEPs ecosystem." The guidance also promised signposting to dispute resolution procedures, information on patent pools, and court processes to resolve disputes. Possibly because an election was called in May the resource hub's launch was delayed until 22 July 2024. It is now up and running and can be accessed at  https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/seps-resource-hub on the Intellectual Property Office ("IPO") website.   The best place to start is the IPO press release  One-stop SEPs Resource Hub launched by UK IPO  ...

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 implement...

European Patent Office Author  Kārlis Dambrāns Licence CC BY-SA 2.0   Source Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert In IPO Consultation on SEPs and Innovation , I mentioned the Intellectual Property Office's open consultation on SEPs and innovation and issued a call for views  on 19 Dec 2021. The responses to that consultation appear in  Standard Essential Patents and Innovation: Summary of Responses to the Call for Views  which was updated on 5# July 2023.   On 21 March 2023, the IPO published a  questionnaire on standard essential patents ("SEPs") for SME small-cap and mid-cap businesses.  which I discussed in IPO Consults on SEP Licensing   on 24 March 2023.  The IPO received 47 responses to that questionnaire including one from me.  It published the outcome of the consultation on 5 July 2023 (see  SEPs questionnaire for SME, small-cap and mid-cap businesses: Summary of Response ).  It intends to consider the r...

Standard YouTube Licence Jane Lambert On the day that my article   Patents - Interdigital Technology Corporation and others v Lenovo Group Ltd. and others   appeared in which I discussed Mr Justice Mellor's 225-page judgment in Interdigital Technology Corporation and others v Lenovo Group Ltd. and others   [2023] EWHC 539 (Pat ),  the Intellectual Property Office ("IPO") announced a questionnaire on standard essential patents ("SEPs") for SME small-cap and mid-cap businesses. This follows an earlier consultation on SEP licensing that the IPO launched on 7 Dec 2021.  I discussed it in  IPO Consultation on SEPs and Innovation   on 19 Dec 2021.  The IPO received 56 responses to that consultation.  The names of the respondents appear in Annex A  to a Summary of Responses to the Call for Views .  Their responses are analysed in that document.  Bearing in mind the costs of FRAND litigation and that it seems to involve only mass...

Shanghai Licence CC9.10   Source Wikimedia Common s   Jane Lambert On 19 Dec 2021, I announced the Intellectual Property Office's consultation on standard essential patents and innovation.   The consultation closed on 1 March 2022 and a Summary of Responses to the Call for Views  has been published.   The summary covers the following topics: Section 1 - The balance of the ecosystem and benefits to innovation and consumers Section 2 - Competition and market functioning Section 3 - Transparency Section 4 – Patent infringement and remedies Section 5 – Licensing of SEPs Section 6 -SEP Litigation A list of respondents appears on page 88 of the summary. They include academics. businesses, law firms. patent attorneys and interest groups.  Contributions came from within the UK and beyond. The IPO seems to have received a wide range of views, some of which diverged widely. In view of the breadth of issues and the divergence of the views on the need for gov...

Intellectual Property Office Crown Copyright 2007 Open Government Licence v3.0   Jane Lambert One of the talks that I gave at the Cambridge IP Law Winter School  was "TMT: A SEP and FRAND Overview".    I did not choose that title so I shall try to explain what I think it means.   "TMT" stands for technology, media and telecoms. TMT is a sector where there has been a lot of litigation about "SEPs".  SEPs are "standard-essential patents", that is to say, patents for inventions that a telecoms equipment manufacturer has to use if it is to implement a technical standard.  Technical standards are set by standards-setting organizations ("SSOs"). An important SSO for mobile communications is the European Telecommunications Standards Institute ("ETSI") .   "FRAND" is short for "fair", "reasonable" and "nondiscriminatory" and refers to the terms on which SEP owners are supposed to license the use...

Jane Lambert Since 2017 I have been invited to speak at the Cambridge IP Law Summer School.  I shared my experiences in Cambridge IP Law Summer School 2017   on 20 Aug 2017 and Cambridge IP Law Summer School 2019 on 19 Aug 2019. I am sorry to say that Downing College cannot host us this year because of the COVID-19 emergency.   Happily, not all is lost because Informa , which runs the course, has made arrangements to hold it online (see IP Law Summer School     10 to 20 Aug 2020). I shall deliver two papers: "TMT A SEP & FRAND": Standard essential patents and FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) terms for the licensing of such patents on 12 Aug 2020 at 15:20; and "Intellectual Property Enforcement Measures, Especially Anti-piracy Measures in the Digital Environment"  on 20 Aug 2020 at 14:25. When I was invited to give the first talk in November we had every hope of a decision of the Supreme Court on the topic....