The owner of an intellectual property right, whether a patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret or other right, has the exclusive right to exploit that right. Ownership of an IP right is thus the most effective and potent means for utilizing that right. But what does it mean to “own” an...

In its 2018 budget, the Government of Canada pledged CDN$85.3 million over five years to support an ambitious new intellectual property (IP) strategy, including CDN$30 million for the formation of a Canadian “Patent Collective.” This paper explores the possible structure and goals of such a...

Over the past several years, there has been a surge in litigation over technical standards, standards-essential patents (SEPs), and the patent policies of standards development organizations (SDOs). While this litigation has fueled a cottage industry of commentary by economists, legal scholars,...

Technical standard setting, though conducted largely through private organizations, possesses many attributes of a public function. By and large, SDO policies operate effectively to enable competitors to collaborate to develop standards that produce network effects and yield significant social...

In an environment in which widely-adopted technical standards may each be covered by large numbers of patents, there have been increasing calls for courts to determine “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory” (FRAND) royalties payable to holders of standards-essential patents (SEPs) using...

Despite their potential benefits, voluntary consensus standards have over the past decade become the subject of significant private litigation, regulatory enforcement and policy debate. Much of the current controversy centers on the perceived proliferation of patents covering standardized...