Law Commons^™

A Research Agenda For Standards-Essential Patents, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This Chapter discusses the current state of legal, economic and policy research on standards-essential patents (SEPs) and fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) licensing of SEPs, and recommends additional research directions for the future. Areas for future research include the investigation of market adoption of standardized products subject to FRAND licensing and available on a royalty-free basis, measurement of various characteristics of SEPs including disclosure, validity, essentiality and transfer, the evolution of SDO and consortia patent policies, SEP licensing behavior, both by SEP holders and product manufacturers, SEP and FRAND disputes and litigation, including arbitration, and competition among patent pools for …

A Statutory Anti-Anti-Suit Injunction For U.S. Patent Cases?, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Litigation relating to fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing of patents essential to industry standards has recently seen a sharp increase in cross-jurisdictional competition fueled by the trend of courts in some jurisdictions (particularly China) to seek to establish FRAND royalty rates applicable around the world, and the increased use of anti-suit injunctions (ASIs) to prevent parties from pursuing parallel litigation in other jurisdictions. The proposed “Defending American Courts Act” (DACA), introduced to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in March 2022, seeks to deter the use of foreign-issued ASIs in U.S. patent litigation. The DACA would effectively create a statutory …

Anti-Suit Injunctions And Jurisdictional Competition In Global Frand Litigation: The Case For Judicial Restraint, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

The proliferation of international jurisdictional conflicts and competing “anti-suit injunctions” in litigation over the licensing of standards-essential patents has raised concerns among policy makers in the United States, Europe and China. This article suggests that national courts temporarily “stand down” from assessing global “fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory” (FRAND) royalty rates while international bodies develop a more comprehensive, efficient and transparent methodology for resolving issues around FRAND licensing.

Patents On 5g Standards Are Not Matters Of National Security, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Recent arguments for stronger patent rights, particularly on 5G wireless telecommunications technologies, are relevant to discussions of national industrial policy and economic development, but are not matters of national security.

Certification (And) Marks – Understanding Usage And Practices Among Standards Organizations, Brad Biddle, Vigdis Bronder, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

In addition to creating technical standards that describe how different products or services interoperate, many standards development organizations (SDOs) also perform testing services that are designed to ensure that products that ostensibly comply with a standard actually work together. SDOs frequently call this process “certification,” and authorize implementers that pass the testing process to use a logo or similar mark. Certification marks are a type of trademark that would seem to be tailor-made for this process. Our empirical analysis shows that SDOs use certification marks only relatively rarely, however. This dissonance is striking, providing insight into both the remarkably sophisticated …

Balance And Standardization: Implications For Competition And Antitrust Analysis, Justus Baron, Jorge L. Contreras, Pierre Larouche

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Most technical standards development organizations (SDOs) have adopted internal policies embodying “due process” criteria such as openness, balance of interests, consensus decision making, and appeals. Unlike other aspects of SDO governance, relatively little scholarly research has considered the history, scope, and interpretation of SDO balance requirements. Likewise, existing case law and agency guidance offer little assistance in understanding precisely how these balance principles translate into specific antitrust requirements that apply to standards development. Given the absence of specific guidance on the meaning and implications of balance requirements for SDOs under the antitrust laws, it is necessary to review the development …

A Framework For Evaluating Willingness Of Frand Licensees, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

An increasing number of cases around the world turn on whether a manufacturer of a product – e.g., a smartphone, a tablet or a car -- (an “implementer”) is willing to pay a “fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory” (FRAND) royalty for patents that are essential to an industry standard embodied in that product (standards-essential patents or SEPs). This determination is important both to the analysis of the appropriateness of an injunction under the 4-factor eBay test in the U.S., and for assessing the appropriateness of injunctive relief under the Huawei v. ZTE competition law case in the EU. This essay explores …

Balance Requirements For Standards Development Organizations: A Historical, Legal And Institutional Assessment, Justus Baron, Jorge L. Contreras, Pierre Larouche

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Most technical standards-development organizations (SDOs) have adopted internal policies embodying “due process” criteria such as openness, balance of interests, consensus decision making and appeals. These requirements arise from numerous sources including antitrust law, international trade law, public procurement requirements and institutional norms. Yet balance criteria lack a generally-accepted definition and the manner in which they are implemented varies, sometimes dramatically, among SDOs. Recently, there has been a renewed interest in the principle that SDOs should ensure a balance of interests among their stakeholders, including in the development of intellectual property rights policies. This article explores the origins and meaning of …

A Historical Note On The Assignment Of Pesticide Common Names, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Thousands of pesticides, herbicides, and related chemical products are used today to control disease-bearing insect populations and enable large-scale agricultural production that feeds much of the world. This short note traces the history of one small but important aspect of this industry—the assignment of common names to pesticides and related products. The little-known history of pesticide common names is illustrative of a few important points. First, it demonstrates the trend exhibited in many fields for the development of standards to migrate from a governmental agency to a US-based standards organization to an international standards organization. Second, it evidences the concern …

No License, No Problem – Is Qualcomm’S Ninth Circuit Antitrust Victory A Patent Exhaustion Defeat?, Jorge L. Contreras, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

The Ninth Circuit’s recent decision in FTC v. Qualcomm (9th Cir., Aug. 11, 2020) is generally viewed as a resounding victory for Qualcomm. But in praising Qualcomm’s egalitarian approach toward rival chip makers, the Ninth Circuit points out that instead of granting licenses to these rivals, Qualcomm merely “declines to enforce its patents” against them “even though they practice Qualcomm’s patents”. As such, the Ninth Circuit states that Qualcomm’s “policy toward rival chipmakers could be characterized as ‘no license, no problem’”. Yet, from the standpoint of patent exhaustion, this approach could actually be a very big problem, not only for …

Sometimes Frand Does Mean License-To-All, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

FRAND commitments are creations of written policy documents and contract law. Accordingly, the existence of a “License to All” obligation under a FRAND commitment must arise from the relevant policy language. Numerous SDO policies expressly impose “License to All” requirements. Some SDO policies are ambiguous with respect to this requirement and such ambiguities should be resolved based on an examination of extrinsic evidence including the intentions of policy drafters, the shared understandings of SDO participants, and the historical precedents for such policies. In many cases, an examination of these factors should lead to the conclusion that “License to All” is, …

Intellectual Property Pools And Aggregation, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This chapter in the forthcoming case book "Intellectual Property Licensing and Transactions: Theory and Practice" covers IP pooling, with an emphasis on patents. It begins with a discussion of the theoretical benefit of pooling, including efficiency gains and the avoidance of blocking positions, thickets and anti-commons. It then addresses antitrust analysis of pooling transactions from Standard Oil (Indiana) v. United States (U.S. 1931) through the 2017 DOJ-FTC Antitrust Guidelines. The chapter then turns to pools created to facilitate standard-setting, including the MPEG-2 and 3GPP Pools, and discusses the concept of complementarity and essentiality of pooled assets. It concludes with brief …

It’S Anti-Suit Injunctions All The Way Down – The Strange New Realities Of International Litigation Over Standards-Essential Patents, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Today’s markets for technology products — from smartphones to home appliances to automobiles — are inherently global. This is especially true of products that embody technical standards — protocols like 5G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB that are covered by hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of patents (so-called “standards-essential patents” or “SEPs”). Given the global scope and size of these markets, it is not surprising that patent litigation over standardized products is often conducted on a global scale. This article looks at an increasingly important aspect of these global standards wars: the ability of a court in one jurisdiction to …

Chapter 20 – Technical Standards: Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory (Frand) Licensing, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This chapter in the forthcoming case book "Intellectual Property Licensing and Transactions" covers licensing transactions involving standards-essential patents (SEPs), including recent legal developments regarding the disclosure (and concealment) of SEPs, fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) royalty rates, non-discriminatory licensing, the availability of injunctive relief for FRAND-encumbered patents, and transfers of FRAND commitments, as well as specific SDO policy clauses and license text addressing each of these issues.

Is Biopharma Ready For The Standards Wars?, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This symposium contribution sheds new light on Momenta v. Amphastar, a recent federal case in which issues relating to standardization and patent disclosure that have previously been observed in the semiconductor, computing and telecommunications sectors found their way into a dispute between two biosimilar manufacturers. One such manufacturer, Momenta, participated in the development of a standard for testing the purity of generic enoxaparin under the auspices of the United States Pharmacopeial Convention, but failed to disclose that it had applied for a patent on the testing method. When Momenta later sued Amphastar for infringement based on its use of that …

Brief Of Amicus Curiae Professor Jorge L. Contreras In Support Of Appellee And Affirmance In Ftc V. Qualcomm, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Qualcomm participated in the development of 3G and 4G wireless telecommunication standards under the auspices of two SDOs, the Telecommunications Industry Association (“TIA”) and the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (“ATIS”). Each of these SDOs had adopted intellectual property rights policies (IPR Policies) that required their participants to grant licenses of SEPs to implementers of their standards on FRAND terms. Yet, over the course of several years, Qualcomm refused to license its SEPs to numerous actual and potential modem chip rivals including MediaTek, Project Dragonfly (a joint venture of NTT DoCoMo, Samsung and several Japanese manufacturers), Samsung, VIA Telecom, Intel, …

Frand And Antitrust, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper considers when a patentee’s violation of a FRAND commitment also violates the antitrust laws. It warns against two extremes. First, is thinking that any violation of a FRAND obligation is an antitrust violation as well. FRAND obligations are contractual, and most breaches of contract do not violate antitrust law. The other extreme is thinking that, because a FRAND violation is a breach of contract, it cannot also be an antitrust violation.

Every antitrust case must consider the market environment in which conduct is to be evaluated. SSOs operated by multiple firms are joint ventures. Antitrust’s role is to …

Making The Rules: The Governance Of Standard Development Organizations And Their Policies On Intellectual Property Rights, Justus Baron, Jorge L. Contreras, Martin Husovec, Pierre Larouche, Nikolaus Thumm

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the governance of standard development organizations (SDOs), with a particular emphasis on organizations developing standards for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The analysis is based on 17 SDO case studies, a survey of SDO stakeholders, an expert workshop, and a comprehensive review of the legal and economic literature. The study considers the external factors conditioning SDO decision making on rules and procedures, including binding legal requirements, government influence, the network of cooperative relationships with other SDOs and related organizations, and competitive forces. SDO decision-making is also shaped by internal factors, such as the …

Private Law, Conflict Of Laws, And A Lex Mercatoria Of Standards-Development Organizations, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Technical standards created by industry standards-development organizations (SDOs) enable interoperability among products manufactured by different vendors. Over the years, SDOs have developed policies to reduce the risk that SDO participants holding patents covering the SDO’s standards will disrupt or hinder the development and deployment of these standards. These policies, including commitments to license standards-essential patents (SEPs) on terms that are fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND), gain transnational application given the international character of SDO activities and are most effectively interpreted and applied on the basis of private law (contractual) principles. However, SDO policies are typically embodied in an SDO’s governing …

Technical Standards Meet Administrative Law: A Teaching Guide On Incorporation By Reference, Emily S. Bremer

Journal Articles

When an agency incorporates by reference, it promulgates a rule that identifies—but does not reprint—material already published elsewhere. The incorporated materials thus become binding law without actually being printed in the agency's regulations. Sometimes the incorporated materials are privately developed technical standards, which are often copyrighted and available only for a fee. This restriction on access undermines transparency and public participation in the rulemaking process. Finding a solution is challenging because the problem is multidimensional, implicating public policy in the areas of administrative law, federal standards law and policy, and copyright.

This teaching guide is part of module that offers …

Understanding "Balance" Requirements For Standards-Development Organizations, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Most technical standards-development organizations (SDOs) have adopted internal policies embodying “due process” criteria such openness, balance of interest, consensus decision making and appeals. Yet these criteria lack a generally-accepted definition and the manner in which they are implemented varies among SDOs. Recently, there has been a renewed interest in the principle that SDOs should ensure a balance of interests among their stakeholders. This article explores the origins and meaning of the balance requirement for SDOs. In doing so, it identifies four “tiers” of balance requirements, ranging from those required of all SDOs under applicable antitrust law, to those required of …

Frand Royalties, Anti-Suit Injunctions And The Global Race To The Bottom In Disputes Over Standards-Essential Patents, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

While national courts have long exercised extraterritorial authority over domestic entities whose conduct abroad is prohibited in the domestic jurisdiction, national courts have recently begun to use disputes over domestic patent rights as vehicles for shaping the global business arrangements of private parties even absent any violation of national law. This phenomenon has become particularly pronounced in the context of “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory” (FRAND) licenses of patents that are essential to the manufacture and sale of standardized products. This essay explores the increasing extraterritorial effect of national judicial decisions on licenses for standards-essential patents, including recent instances in which …

The Effect Of Frand Commitments On Patent Remedies, Jorge L. Contreras, Thomas F. Cotter, Sang Jo Jong, Brian J. Love, Nicolas Petit, Peter George Picht, Norman Siebrasse, Rafał Sikorski, Masabumi Suzuki, Jacques De Werra

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This chapter addresses a special category of cases in which an asserted patent is, or has been declared to be, essential to the implementation of a collaboratively-developed voluntary consensus standard, and the holder of that patent has agreed to license it to implementers of the standard on terms that are fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND). In this chapter, we explore how the existence of such a FRAND commitment may affect a patent holder’s entitlement to monetary damages and injunctive relief. In addition to issues of patent law, remedies law and contract law, we consider the effect of competition law on …

Global Rate Setting: A Solution For Standard-Essential Patents?, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

The commitment to license patents that are essential to technical interoperability standards on terms that are fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) is a fundamental mechanism that enables standards to be developed collaboratively by groups of competitors. Yet disagreements over FRAND royalty rates continue to bedevil participants in global technology markets. Allegations of opportunistic hold-up and hold-out continue to arise, spurring competition authorities to investigate and intervene in private standard-setting. And litigation regarding compliance with FRAND commitments has led an increasing number of courts around the world to adjudicate FRAND royalty rates, often on a global basis, but using very different …

Taking It To The Limit: Shifting U.S. Antitrust Policy Toward Standards Development, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

In November 2017, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim, chief of the Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division, gave a speech at University of Southern California provocatively entitled “Take it to the Limit: Respecting Innovation Incentives in the Application of Antitrust Law”. In this speech, Mr. Delrahim announced a new DOJ policy approach to the antitrust analysis of collaborative standard setting and standards-development organizations (SDOs) -- the trade associations and other groups in which industry participants cooperate to develop interoperability standards such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 4G and 5G, USB and the like. He explained that the DOJ had “strayed too …

Much Ado About Holdup, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

The policy debate surrounding patent hold-up in markets for standardized products is now well into its second decade with no end in sight. Fundamental questions including the definition of hold-up, whether it exists in the marketplace, and what impact it has on innovation, continue to bedevil scholars, policy makers and industry. Yet it is not clear that this debate needs to continue. Patent hold-up is a pattern of market behavior, not a legally-cognizable wrong. Whether it is commonplace or rare is largely irrelevant to liability in any given case. To the extent that hold-up behavior constitutes an abuse of market …

Rambus Redux? – Standards, Patents And Non-Disclosure In The Pharmaceutical Sector (Momenta V. Amphastar), Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Amphastar Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (D.Mass 2) involves the alleged deception of a standards-development organization (SDO) by the holder of a patent essential to a standard relating to the manufacture of the drug enoxaparin. The SDO's rules regarding disclosure of standards-essential patents (SEPs) were found to be ambiguous, yet, as in Qualcomm v. Broadcom (Fed. Cir. 2008), the district court held that participant expectations created an affirmative obligation to disclose SEPs. Following the SEP holder's assertion of the undisclosed patent against a competing generic manufacturer of enoxaparin, the alleged infringer successfully raised defenses of waiver and estoppel against …

Trademarks, Certification Marks And Technical Standards, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

The names of many technical standards such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and DVD have become household terms known throughout the developed world. This chapter describes different approaches that have been taken with respect to the naming and legal protection of technical standards, ranging from those that are wholly unregulated to those that are administered under strict certification and compliance regimes. It concludes by questioning the need for aggressive protection of marks that exist largely to inform consumers about technical product features rather than the source of standards themselves.

Emojis And The Law, Eric Goldman

Faculty Publications

Emojis are an increasingly important way we express ourselves. Though emojis may be cute and fun, their usage can lead to misunderstandings with significant legal stakes—such as whether someone should be obligated by contract, liable for sexual harassment, or sent to jail.

Our legal system has substantial experience interpreting new forms of content, so it should be equipped to handle emojis. Nevertheless, some special attributes of emojis create extra interpretative challenges. This Article identifies those attributes and proposes how courts should handle them.

One particularly troublesome interpretative challenge arises from the different ways platforms depict emojis that are nominally standardized …

Non-Discrimination And Frand Commitments, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

A pledge to license standard essential patents (SEPs) on a non- discriminatory basis is a common element of SDO IPR Policies, part of the larger commitment to license on Fair, Reasonable, and Non- Discriminatory (FRAND) terms. In this chapter we consider what non-discrimination pledges imply for SDO member conduct. We review the basic variants of such pledges, how they may be informed by broader legal and economic defi nitions of discrimination, and recent cases and agency guidance interpreting such commitments. We conclude with open questions regarding the legal implications of non-discriminatory licensing pledges.