I recently attended the IPBC/IAM Live conference in Paris, where judges from both the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and a German court shared their perspectives on standard-essential patent (SEP) litigation. A consistent theme emerged from these discussions: neither the UPC nor Germany is equipped to make real FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) determinations. Florence Butin, President of the Court of First Instance of the UPC and herself a UPC judge, noted that th

Recently, I have been focusing on why competition law authorities should pay more attention to standard setting, SEP licensing, SEP litigation, and SEP sales.  Well, it turns out that the Brazilian competition authority has decided to do just that.  Brazil is a jurisdiction that grants (near) automatic injunctions, including preliminary injunctions, for patent infringement, regardless of whether the patent is a SEP.  Brazil also is the largest market in South America for cert

One of the excuses used by Germany’s Federal Court of Justice in the VoiceAgeEVS v. HMD  case to justify an injunction was its finding that injunctions are necessary to encourage implementers to take a license.  But SEP licensing   is not a goal of standard development .   Let me say that again – SEP licensing is not a goal of standard development.   SEP licensing by those who participate in the development of a standard is tolerated only because it is believed to support one