Industrial Property Rights - Technical Standards and Licensing Practices (FRAND) in the Telecommunications Industry

This thesis seeks to analyse the tension between IPRs and standards in the telecommunication field from a theoretical but also a practical point of view. It offers an overview of the main standardisation problems (proliferation of patents, hold-up, royalty stacking, over-declaration, lack of definition of FRAND, injection of patents in the standard, existence of different business models, patent trolls, patent ambush, etc). Moreover, this thesis analyses from the European and US legal perspective such relevant questions as ‘Is FRAND commitment legally binding?’, ‘How do courts determine FRAND?’, ‘Should Europe have the same concerns regarding patent trolls as in the US?’, ‘Does a commitment to license certain essential patents on FRAND terms survive the transfer of these patents?’, ‘Can deceptive conducts, particularly patent ambush, harm competition law?’, ‘Are proposals such as joint negotiation, fixing a cap, Industry Royalty Pie model or mandatory ex ante disclosure adequate to solve the current problems in standardisation? When are patent pools the best choice? Finally, several recommendations are given to the courts, patent offices, governments, standard setting organisations and industry.