Industry associations hit out at European Commission SEP group
Industry associations have expressed concerns about the European Commissions’s published list of members for a group set up to consider the licensing and valuation of standard-essential patents (SEPs).
Created in efforts to “deepen the expertise on evolving industry practices related to the licensing of SEPs” in view of an increasingly digitalised economy, according to the Commission, the group consists of 15 members. The list was updated on Friday, October 26.
Other aims of the group are to ensure the “sound valuation of IP” and better understand the realm of fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing terms.
Members include Damien Geradin, a professor at Tilburg University and founder of Edge Legal (both in the Netherlands), and Jorge Padilla, senior managing director and head of economics consulting firm Compass Lexecon Europe in Madrid.
In their declaration of interests, Geradin specified that he has assisted Huawei in a number of legal proceedings over the last five years, while Padilla noted that he has offered litigation support to Qualcomm, Nokia and Huawei since 2005.
Back in July, the Commission announced the creation of the group, a move welcomed by The App Association, which represents more than 5,000 app companies and IT firms.
At the time, Morgan Reed, executive director of the association, said the group represents the “next step towards creating a predictable and fair framework for SEP licensing”.
But, since the publication of the membership list, Reed has expressed “deep reservations” about the ability of the group to balance the interests of the two sides—licensors and implementers—in the SEP licensing process.
“The make-up of the group appears to favour the interests of licensors, leaving the interests of downstream innovators, including small app developers, under-represented,” he claimed. “We will of course engage constructively with this group in order to help it tackle some of the challenging issues that have plagued SEP licensing for so many years.”
App developer Florian Mueller, in a blog post on Foss Patents, claimed that the group is “not the result of responsible choices made by neutral public servants desiring the best for Europe”.
He claimed that it appears as if “none other than Qualcomm put it together, with other aggressive SEP monetisers like Nokia, Ericsson and InterDigital possibly having contributed to it”.
Also, according to the blog post, the Fair Standards Alliance, a group set up by BMW, Cisco Systems and others to promote the licensing of SEPs on FRAND terms, has expressed strong concerns about the “unbalanced nature” of the group.
The alliance apparently fears that “the outcome of the discussions in the group will negatively impact incentives to innovate for the years to come, to the detriment of European industry and consumers”.
It also has concerns about the “lack of substantial experience and significant competence within the experts group in terms of the licensing and valuation of SEPs”.
Despite the criticisms, IP Europe, an alliance of innovation-intensive companies whose members include Ericsson and Nokia, welcomed the makeup of the group.
IP Europe claimed that the group’s work will be “absolutely vital to help deepen” the Commission’s expertise and “ensure continued European leadership in innovation and the growth of Europe’s digital economy”.
Did you enjoy reading this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox.
Today’s top stories
Copyright does not prevent publication of military reports: AG opinion
USPTO seeks comments on motions to amend changes
SCOTUS to clarify ‘person’ requirements under AIA
AIPLA 2018: PTAB judges talk construction and cherry picking
