SEP Essentials

We have spent some time recently working on our house which got me thinking about how standards are akin to blueprints for a house.  Blueprints help a builder put a house together, but they do not specify every detail that ultimately needs to be completed to create a finished house.  Often, these details are omitted on purpose because they are not necessary to build the house or because clients want to vary those details based on preference or budget.  Sometimes, a significan

This post is the second to look at the emerging jurisdiction of India and its recent SEP related jurisprudence.  My first post ( Jurisdiction No. 6 - India ( sepessentials.com ) ) reviewed the Delhi High Court’s decision in the SEP patent lawsuit filed by Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (“Ericsson) against Intex Technologies.  To remind you, one of the bases for the lower court finding that Intex was, prima facie , an unwilling licensee was that Intex had “delayed” the procee

Kathi Vidal, Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, spoke today at the Berkeley-Stanford Advanced Patent Law Institute held at Stanford Law School along with Konstantinos Georgaras, CEO of the Canadian IP Office.  It was an interesting chat all around with a good discussion of each office’s diversity efforts, encouragement of underrepresented communities not only to file applications but to continue with them after a preliminary rejection and a lot on AI and the ch

In one of my previous posts, Answers to First Pop Quiz (sepessentials.com) , I reviewed the primary jurisdictions in which SEP cases usually are filed, what makes those jurisdictions popular (or unpopular) for cases filed by SEP holders or by implementers and why each of them is an outlier in its own way. Today, I’m taking a similar look at another emerging jurisdiction – India – and its recent SEP related jurisprudence. For years the conventional wisdom was that it was too

On September 11, 2023, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”), International Trade Administration (“ITA”) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”) jointly published a request for comments in the Federal Register seeking input from stakeholders on issues related to standards and intellectual property, especially as they impact small and medium enterprises in critical and emerging technologies. After an extension of time, public comments were due on No

Certain companies, commentators and litigants and, unfortunately on occasion, government agencies repeat the following mantra: there needs to be “balance” between the interests of SEP owners and standard implementers in order to encourage standards development. This mantra includes the claim that innovative companies will not participate in standards development unless they are rewarded by the opportunity to make money through SEP licensing. [1] Yet, there is very little em