SEP Essentials

I recently posted about 5G, Stagnation and Innovation ( sepessentials.com ) , and wanted to take a deeper dive into one of the issues that was buried in my footnotes.  In particular, I am still floored by the number of patents claimed to be essential to the 5G standard, particularly given that 5G is essentially a mashup of previously existing technologies with some tinkering and updates around the edges.  I can only conclude that the 5G patent space (and maybe the 5G standard

I will never forget what a friend (who at the time was working for a grocery store chain) said to me a while back because it was such a sad indictment of our current SEP licensing system: “We sell tomatoes and we have seven patent cases.” Nearly all of those patent cases involved SEPs (or alleged SEPs).  Standards, particularly communications standards, are easy assertion targets:  a patent holder need only do one analysis (against the standard) and then simply determine whet

Let’s talk stagnation.  I’ve noticed lately that the rollout of 5G seems to have stalled.  Yes, when I am in certain big cities my phone tells me I’m on 5G.  But other than in those big cities, my phone always seems to be on 4G/LTE.  Now, I know the arguments as to why 5G is supposed to be better.  I know that 5G is supposed to be configured to natively carry data and so should be better, faster and more efficient at data transfers.   I know that in one of its incarnations –

I have previously posted in depth on the EU’s “Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on standard essential patents and amending Regulation (EU) 2017/1001” (“Proposal”) and recently gave an update on the passage by the EC’s Legal Affairs Committee (“JURI”) of a modified version of the Proposal. [1]   I wanted to take a deeper dive into the modifications to the Proposal (“MP”) considered by JURI. [2] I’ll start by focusing on those aspects of

I have previously posted in depth on the EU’s “Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on standard essential patents and amending Regulation (EU) 2017/1001” (“Proposal”). [1]  I am pleased to report that, on Wednesday (23/1/24 since we’re being European), the EC’s Legal Affairs Committee (“JURI”) adopted a modified version of the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on standard essential patents and amending

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