The European Commission is proposing new regulations related to standard-essential patents (SEPs), which notably require patent holders to register their patent claims before they will be able demand royalties from implementations of the standards involved. The public registration system functions well…if patent owners use it. As it stands, late-registered patents remain as a viable control point for incumbents and NPEs (trolls) as a means to disregard the regulation’s collective pricing measures. This threatens the standards’ ability to create a fair market for both patent owners and licensees.
The OSI is generally in support of the SEP-R and acknowledges improvements made by the EU based on public feedback. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t still room for improvement. The OSI goes beyond highlighting this loophole by offering a potential solution—recommending the legislation add a waiting period for patent claims registered under the regulation as standard-essential after the standard has been ratified.
More in my blog post.