On December 21, 2017, Judge Selna of the District Court for the Central District of California handed down a decision in TCL v. Ericsson regarding the determination of fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) royalty rates for standard essential patents (SEPs). Despite being a term of art for technology licensing and a long-standing requirement for many standard setting organizations (SSOs), the concept of FRAND royalty rates still presents problems and confusion in practice. Judge Selna suggested that FRAND royalties should be determined on the basis of “Law, Logic, and Economics.”
Prof. Marco will discuss SEPs in the context of complementary and complex products, which are ubiquitous in IoT. He will use the TCL v. Ericsson decision to provide some simple suggestions for improving the evaluation of FRAND royalties. The hope is to use these suggestions and hypothetical examples to generate discussion about good SEP policy and management.
Bio:
Dr. Alan Marco is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is an economist who specializes in intellectual property, innovation and patent policy, and science and technology policy. He was formerly the Chief Economist at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), where his research focused on policy-relevant topics in intellectual property. He is the co-creator of the USPTO’s www.PatentsView.org, a free and open platform for exploring and accessing high-quality patent data. He was also the co-lead on the Cancer Moonshot Patent Challenge as part of the White House Cancer Moonshot Task Force. Dr. Marco has published academic articles on the intellectual property marketplace, uncertainty in intellectual property rights, patent valuation, and high-tech mergers. He has previously held positions of assistant and associate professor at Vassar College and associate professor at Washington and Lee University. Dr. Marco earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California-Berkeley and his B.A. in mathematics and economics from Skidmore College. His TEDx talk, Why the patent system should look more like Indiana and less like Kentucky, can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJhSD8ABt3s.
Event Details
Topic: Law, Logic, and Economics: IoT, Standardization, and SEPs
Day/Date: Tuesday, April 20, 2021
Time: 4pm-5pm EST
Hosted By Dr. Daniel Sokol
Zoom link: https://ufl.zoom.us/j/94724251452?pwd=aHpFUm1mcElwYkFGL2JzUjkrNHFoZz09
Meeting ID: 947 2425 1452
Passcode: 777142