In our March 15 post Are Antitrust Agencies Nudging Standard Setting Bodies on Patent Licensing?, we discussed a journal article authored by two current and one former senior economists from U.S. and European antitrust agencies which called on patent standard-setting organizations (SSOs) to take a stronger stand against anti-competitive behavior. The economists’ hope was that SSOs could nip in the bud controversies over standard-essential patent holders seeking injunctions or what constitutes a reasonable (i.e. “RAND”) licensing fee.
Yesterday, the American Antitrust Institute (AAI) petitioned the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to escalate the nudge into a menacing carrot and stick combination. The petition urges the agencies to adopt joint enforcement guidelines that could act as a “safe harbor” for SSOs from antitrust liability. Why would SSOs need such a safe harbor? Because AAI feels that SSOs should be held responsible for the anti-competitive activity of their members if SSOs don’t have in place “important safeguards against monopoly power.”
The petition suggests that the DOJ/FTC guidelines should require SSOs to adopt as part of their agreements, which are binding on their standard setting members, the following patent policies:
- Disclosure of patents as well as anticipated and pending patent applications supported by “good faith reasonable inquiry”
- Breach of the foregoing disclosure obligation should result in a zero royalty license if an undisclosed patent is incorporated into the standard
- Ex Ante RAND licensing commitment
- Stipulation that participants whose patents are incorporated into the standard are prohibited from seeking injunctions and exclusion orders against willing licensees
- Licensing terms run with the patent
- Licensees should have cash-only licensing options on individual SEPs
- Efficient, cost-effective process to resolve disputes over RAND royalty and non-royalty rates.
As we noted in our March 15 post, SSOs have been reluctant to adopt more demanding policies to which standard-setting participants must adhere, though the United Nation’s International Telecommunications Union intimated last October that it might be open to such changes. A stick-wielding carrot such as a joint DOJ-FTC guidance would likely move SSOs like the ITU beyond mere contemplation.