Standard Essential Patent
The first two substantive public hearings of the Unified Patent Court will be held next month at the local division in Munich about applications for provisional measures. The hearings, on 5 (and if necessary 6) September and 19 September 2023, concern applications for preliminary injunctions in infringement cases brought by 10x Genomics against Nanostring Technologies….
Since the start of June 2023, 21 new technically qualified judges have been appointed to the Unified Patent Court and more will follow later this year. According to a UPC announcement, candidates will be contacted for interviews in the upcoming weeks. Before taking up their duties, the newly appointed judges take an oath in open…
The Brazilian PTO (BRPTO) released, on July 20, 2023, the report “5G Technology: Patent overview in the World and in Brazil”, with an overview of 5G Standard Essential Patent (SEP) applications. It highlights that the expansion of network infrastructure in the world is an important international agenda, as published by the ITU (International Telecommunications Union)….
As many readers will know, Apple and Optis have been engaged in international litigation concerning Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) since 2019. On 26 February 2019, Optis filed an action against Apple in the English Patents Court for infringement of the GB designations of eight European Patents. Following a finding that at least one of Optis’…
In an earlier post I explained the issues that the proposed EU Regulation on SEPs intends to address, and why neither the market nor the courts solve them. Here, I discuss three points of critique brought against the Proposal: that it would reduce innovation incentives; that a family-level essentiality assessment would be too imprecise; and…
The Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) Regulation Proposal also known as the IP Action Plan formally issued by the European Commission today suggests groundbreaking changes to the standard essential patent landscape as we know it. The SEPs Regulation Proposal indicates the European Commission’s desire to establish four major requirements for SEPs holders and implementers. These are…
The European Commission’s recently leaked Proposal for a Regulation on standard-essential patents (SEPs), summarized here by Enrico Bonadio and Dyuti Pandya, establishes a framework for transparent SEP licensing. Some have criticized the proposal, claiming among other things that it is unnecessary, harmful to innovation, and difficult to implement. Much of this critique is unjustified. More…
EU institutions have recently paid attention to Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) and how the SEPs framework could be improved to encourage innovation while also promoting competition and satisfying consumers’ interests. In its 2020 Intellectual Property Action Plan on IP, for example, the Commission stressed the need to set the right conditions for a transparent, predictable,…
Nokia v Oppo [2023] EWHC 23 (Pat) In a new development in the global dispute between Nokia and Oppo that spans seven jurisdictions across Europe and Asia, Mr Justice Meade of the English Patents Court has found that smartphone manufacturer Oppo infringes valid and standard essential Nokia 4G/5G patent EP2981103 on an “allocation of preamble…
The past decade has witnessed a sharp increase in litigation over standard essential patents (SEPs) around the world. National courts in several countries including UK have ruled they can set global FRAND rates, the Unwired Planet case in UK being a notable example. This approach is controversial and has sparked debates over the ability of…
