Thought leadership to move us forward

Examining the latest topics and news related to innovation policy.

Summary of article: “AI for Patent and Essentiality Review” by Katie Atkinson & Danushka Bollegala

An important step in the process of developing novel standards for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is to determine whether a patent held by a company is, or might be, required in order to practice the concepts of a given ICT standard. Patented inventions that prove necessary for the practice
Read More

International Pro-Competition Regulation of Digital Platforms: Healthy Experimentation or Dangerous Fragmentation?

Amelia Fletcher, Norwich Business School, and Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia. The increasing dominance of a small number of ‘big tech’ companies across a range of critical online markets has led to growing calls for the adoption of regulation to promote competition and ensure that market power
Read More

China’s Practice of Anti-Suit Injunctions in SEP Litigation: Transplant or False Friend?

In 2020, China abruptly became the largest grantor of anti-suit injunctions (ASIs), which are court orders that prevent the opposing party from beginning or continuing a proceeding in another jurisdiction. China’s use of ASIs, which were used to address patent litigation initiated in a foreign country, was explicitly supported by
Read More

The Battle Over Patents: A Summary

Adapted from The Battle over Patents: History and Politics of Innovation, edited by Stephen H. Haber and Naomi R. Lamoreaux (Oxford University Press, 2021). Complaints about the patent system are not new. Virtually all arguments that critics seize upon today to support their suggestions for a patent reform have
Read More

IP is Not IP: Intellectual Property is Not Industrial Policy, and Why This Matters 

Competition by China with the United States for global leadership in innovation has prompted anew an age-old policy debate: What are the best policies and legal institutions to promote next-generation inventions like 5G, AI, and mRNA vaccines? Are innovations best promoted and distributed either through industrial policy initiatives like prizes,
Read More

LeadershIP Hosts Webinar on the DMA and the US Antitrust Bills

On June 30, LeadershIP hosted a webinar titled EU DMA vs. US Legislative Proposals: Lessons and Path Forward, where the discussion focused on the Digital Markets Act (DMA)—the legislation recently adopted by the European Union that imposes obligations and prohibitions on the world’s largest digital platforms such as Apple,
Read More

Licensing Standard Essential Patents: FRAND and the Internet of Things

Igor Nikolic’s book, Licensing Standard Essential Patents: FRAND and the Internet of Things, examines the evolution of policies, legal framework, and disputes related to standard-essential patents (SEPs) for cellular technologies – from early mobile phones, to smartphones and tablets using 3G and 4G functionalities, to the latest 5G
Read More

Our National Security Depends on SEP Policy

In December 2021, the Department of Justice issued the Draft Policy Statement on Licensing Negotiations and Remedies for Standards-Essential Patents Subject to Voluntary F/RAND Commitments.  The Draft Policy Statement sets forth a naively idealized example of what a good faith negotiation would look like, and then turns to whether
Read More

Little Evidence Supporting the Argument About Limiting the Patent Holder’s Right to Select the Licensing Level

Gregor Langus & Vilen Lipatov In our new paper ‘Efficient level of SEPs licensing’, we examine the question whether a patent holder should be allowed to choose the level in the value chain at which to offer to license its standard essential patents (SEPs). SEPs are patents
Read More