As part of its “policy project to examine the legal and policy issues surrounding the problem of potential patent ‘hold-up’ when patented technologies are included in collaborative standards”, the Federal Trade Commission held an all-day workshop on June 21, 2011. The first panel of the...

Some policymakers, courts, and academics have expressed concerns that when a firm’s patents are incorporated into a standard, the inclusion can create market power for the patent holders that can then be abused when the standard is commercialized. This paper offers a critical assessment of...

Since the issue first emerged in the policy arena in the early 2000s, economists have been debating the meaning and implications of FRAND licensing commitments within cooperative technology standard setting organizations (SSOs). Today the issue is global, with scholars and policymakers in...

Patents declared to standard development organizations (SDOs) as potentially essential for compliance with standards under development within the SDO are typically bound by so-called FRAND commitments – promises from the patent holder to license the patents on fair, reasonable, and...

To date, the majority of the debate surrounding a RAND licensing promise (for reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing) made in the context of standard setting has focused on what the "R" means; far less attention has been given to what is implied by the "ND". Not surprisingly, then, some...