The Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) has published a business review letter that it will not challenge the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (“IEEE”) adopting changes to its IPR Policy discussed in our Feb. 3, 2015 post. In a related DOJ press release, DOJ states that it does
U.S. Dept. of Justice closes investigation of Samsung’s assertion of standard essential patents
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that it was closing its investigation into Samsung’s use of standard essential patents, which investigation had “focused on Samsung’s attempts to use its SEPs to obtain exclusion orders from the [ITC] relating to certain iPhone and iPad models.” DOJ stated that further investigation was no longer
American Antitrust Institute calls on FTC, DOJ to force standard-setting organizations to adopt more stringent patent policies
Late last week, the American Antitrust Institute submitted a very interesting petition to the U.S. Dept. of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. In the petition, which is titled “Request for Joint Enforcement Guidelines on the Patent Policies of Standard Setting Organizations,” the AAI urges these agencies to step up their enforcement of the antitrust laws with respect to SSOs themselves — not merely the participants in the standard-setting process. To that end, the AAI requests that the FTC/DOJ (1) issue specific guidelines for what should be included in SSO patent policies, and (2) hold SSOs liable for not adopting procedural safeguards to prevent patent hold-up behavior.
Continue Reading American Antitrust Institute calls on FTC, DOJ to force standard-setting organizations to adopt more stringent patent policies
Public comments on FTC/DOJ Patent Assertion Entity Workshop include worries that PAEs may “game the system” of standard-setting and RAND licensing
Back in December 2012, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice held a joint workshop to explore the impact that patent assertion entities (PAEs — or non-practicing entities/NPEs) may be having on innovation, competition, and the U.S. economy. The FTC and DOJ invited the public to submit comments for consideration by the agencies, even extending the deadline for submission until early April. All in all, 68 separate submissions have been received and posted on the FTC/DOJ workshop’s site.
The commenters represent a wide variety of industries and interests, and express divergent viewpoints and positions about the effects of PAE activity. Many comments focus on the newly-reintroduced SHIELD Act. Given that the main focus of this blog is on standard-essential patent issues, we won’t even try to give a comprehensive rundown of all of the comments — we’ll leave the focus on non-practicing entities to others. But several of the comments do express particular concern about the interplay between PAEs, standard-setting organizations and standard-essential patents. After the jump, we’ll discuss some of these issues that are being flagged as troublesome.
RANDomness
The DOJ and USPTO released a joint policy statement on January 8 regarding remedies for infringement of FRAND-encumbered SEPs, taking the position that injunctive relief is generally inappropriate for these patents. Microsoft praised the statement, and called on the FTC to consider strengthening its consent agreement with Google.- Ars Technica reports that at
