TECHNOLOGY PATENT LICENSING:
Some Comments from Readers
1. “Are there any good books on marketing/ licensing?” “There are some very good books on licensing of patents and technologies, including…Technology Patent Licensing: An International Reference on 21st Century Patent Licensing, Patent Pools and Patent Platforms by Larry Goldstein, Brian Kearsey.” http://www.fishiplaw.com/marketing. This is the Web site of the law firm of Fish & Associates (Irvine, California). The name partner, Robert D. Fish, is the author of the book Strategic Patenting (Trafford Publishing, 2007).
2. “A more exhaustive discussion of GSM and W-CDMA may be found in Goldstein and Kearsey’s most excellent book, Technology Patent Licensing: An International Reference on 21st Century Patent Licensing, Patent Pools, and Patent Platforms…” http://www.investorvillage.com/uploads/82827/files/LESI-Royalty-Rates.pdf. Eric Stasik, founder of AvvikaAB (Stockholm, Sweden), in the article, “Royalty Rates And Licensing Strategies For Essential Patents On LTE (4G) Telecommunication Standards”, printed in les Nouvelles – The Journal of the Licensing Executives Society International, September, 2010, at p.114.
3. “The material [about FRAND licensing and patent essentiality] is there, and the material is good. These are complex topics and they tackle the complexity well overall. A very focused book with lots of practical guidance for those who are involved in sharing patents.” http://lesnouvelles.lesi.org/lesnouvelles2005/lesNouvellesPDF03-05/Open-Book-Ram.pdf, Open Book: A Review of Technology Patent Licensing, by John T. Ramsay, Q.C., printed in les Nouvelles – The Journal of the Licensing Executives Society International, March, 2005, at p.49.
4. Technology Patent Licensing is cited extensively in patent literature, particularly in regard to FRAND licensing and the evaluation of patent essentiality. Here is a sample of the references:
- Industrial Property Rights, Technical Standards and Licensing Practices (FRAND) in the Telecommunications Industry, Claudia Tapia (Carl Heymanns Verlag, division of Wolters Kluwer Deutschland GmbH, Cologne, Germany, 2010): at pp.1, 15, and 16, on the definition of FRAND.
- “PRICING PATENTS FOR LICENSING IN STANDARD SETTING ORGANIZATIONS: MAKING SENSE OF FRAND COMMITMENTS”, Anne Layne-Farrar, A. Jorge Padilla, and Richard Schmalensee CEMFI Working Paper No. 0702, (Madrid, Spain, January, 2007), ftp://ftp.cemfi.es/wp/07/0702.pdf, p.2 on FRAND, and pp.7, 12 on the evaluation of patent essentiality.
- “Intellectual Property in Broadband Mobile Telecommunications: Predictions on 4G WiMAX”, Tobias Kaufmann, derived from a master’s thesis submitted to the MAS Intellectual Property program of the Swiss Federation Institute of Technology in Zurich, 2007, http://www.frlicense.com/IntellectualPropertyinBroadbandMT.pdf: p.3 on the difficult history of GSM patent licensing, p.4 on the cumulative royalty rates of up to 40%, p.4 on the multiplicity of 3G technical standards, p.5 on specific issues related to the 3G Patent Platform.
- “Interoperability remedies and innovation : a review of recent case law, Thomas Hoehn of the Imperial College Business School, London, and Alex Lewis of the competition and antitrust consulting firm CompetitionRx, London, 2012, https://workspace.imperial.ac.uk/business-school/Public/IP-Research-Centre/Interoperability%20remedies%20and%20innovation-%20a%20review%20of%20recent%20case%20law.pdf: pp.3, 11 on FRAND.
- “Patent Value Apportionment Rules for Complex, Multi-Patent Products”, Damien Geradin and Anne Layne-Farrar, SANTA CLARA COMPUTER & HIGH TECH LAW JOURNAL, vol. 27, pp.763-792 (2011), http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1528&context=chtlj:pp.764, 768, 772, and 776, on the calculation of royalties by royalty base and royalty rate.
- “Going Once … Going Twice … Licensed Under the Most Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory Bidding Terms!”, David L. Newman, Arnstein & Lehr LLP, Northwestern Journal of Technology & Intellectual Property, vol. 11, pp.139-162 (2013), http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1187&context=njtip: p.143 on FRAND, and p.153 on credible essentiality evaluation as the basis for patent licensing of essential patents.
5. Barnett, Jonathan, “From Patent Thickets to Patent Networks: The Legal Infrastructure of the Digital Economy”, (May 1, 2014), Jurimetrics, 2014, USC Law Legal Studies Paper No. 14-23, http://ssrn.com/abstract=2431917
Citing Technology Patent Licensing on (1) the requirement to license all standard-essential patents, and (2) the definition of RAND.
6. ECSIP (The European Competitiveness and Sustainable Industrial Policy Consortium), “FINAL REPORT: Patents and Standards: A modern framework for IPR-based standardization. A study prepared for the European Commission Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry”, March 23, 2014.
Citing Technology Patent Licensing on (1) the receipt of approval letters from the antitrust authorities; and (2) the process for determining the essentiality of a patent to a technical standard.