Since 2002 and the publication of the Mandelkern report,1 the question of reducing burdens and costs, both regulatory and administrative, has emerged as a recurrent topic that regularly comes up at the European Council. It is, moreover, revealing that one of the points of rupture that led the...

Standards reduce production costs and increase products' value to consumers. Standards however entail risks of anti-competitive abuse. After the adoption of a standard, the chosen technology normally lacks credible substitutes. The owner of the patented technology might thus have additional...

This paper argues that the consequences of the ‘fragmentation’ of the European patent system are more dramatic than the mere prohibitive costs of maintaining a patent in force in many jurisdictions. First, detailed analysis of judicial systems in several European countries and four case...