SEP Essentials

The IEEE is a consensus organization “dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.” [1]  And that is how Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11) started: with a bunch of dreamers and idealists who wanted to create new technology to make everyone’s life easier.  They worked under a set of rules that allowed every individual who came to enough meetings to vote on proposals and required that each of these individuals vote their conscience, rather than voting in a block to protect

On 27 April 2023, the European Commission published its proposal for the Regulation of Standard Essential Patents (“SEP Proposal”).  The SEP Proposal was carefully considered and vetted through the European Union’s ordinary legislative procedures.  Stakeholders and the public were given the opportunity to provide written input and there were more than 70 submissions from businesses, academics and other experts.  It was also reviewed, and comments and suggestions made, by seve

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (“ETSI”) requires each SEP owner to agree to give an “irrevocable undertaking in writing that it is prepared to grant irrevocable licences on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (“FRAND”) terms and conditions . . .”  If a SEP owner refuses, the committee, in consultation with the ETSI Secretariat, is empowered to stop work on the applicable section of the standard. [1]   Similarly, in the Institute of Electrical and Elec

Those were the words on everyone’s lips at both IAM’s SEP Summit Global 2025 in London (“IAM’s Summit”) and at the Symposium on Standard Essential Patents hosted by the World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”) in Geneva (“WIPO Symposium”).  The Honorable Justice Mellor of the Chancery Division of the U.K. High Court put it most succinctly at IAM’s Summit: the biggest issue related to SEPs today is the lack of transparency. [1]  On nearly every panel, nearly everyone,

I wanted to title this series of posts “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” in a homage to the spaghetti Western’s conception of the American West. However, these categories do not line up so clearly with the current state of the world’s most used SEP litigation jurisdictions.  Instead, I titled this series of posts “The Coherent, the Meh and the Left Behind.” These are more useful categories to describe the SEP policies of the most used—and top emerging—SEP litigation jurisdict

I first met Graham Bell during the Innovatio MDL litigation. [1]   Innovatio IP Ventures, LLC (Innovatio) had acquired patents from Broadcom Corporation (“Broadcom”) that, during the Innovatio litigation, were found to be essential to the Wi-Fi standard.  Innovatio sent thousands of letters to small businesses and mom and pop shops alleging that their use of Wi-Fi infringed those patents.  Innovatio demanded as much as $2,500 per location to use Wi-Fi and to provide (usually