IEEE patent policy clears hurdle

IEEE patent policy clears hurdle

	Published : Mon, 30 Apr 2007 20:57 By : Agencies Print this Story

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Department of Justice on Monday said it will not oppose an engineering association's proposal to allow patent holders to commit to restrictions on future licensing terms for patents essential to global standards.

The agency said the proposal from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers may enable the association to make better decisions when creating standards intended to benefit consumers.

In October, DOJ issued a similar response to another standard-setting organization, the VMEbus International Trade Association. The agency concluded then that mandatory disclosure of a patent holder's most restrictive licensing terms before a standard is set can preserve competition between alternative technologies during the process.

The business review requests from both groups show their commitment to improving patent disclosure licensing policies, and antitrust laws permit are asonable efforts' to do that through collaboration, said Thomas O. Barnett, assistant attorney general for DOJ's antitrust division.

Representatives from the IEEE, which is based in New Jersey and has 370,000 members, did not immediately return a request for comment.

Patents are a hot topic in Washington. The Supreme Court on Monday ruled in two patent cases and lawmakers recently introduced reform legislation simultaneously in both houses that seeks to reduce the filing of willful infringement lawsuits by making it harder for patent holders to prove their innovation has been illegally copied.

Under the IEEE policy, the patent holder also could choose not to provide any licensing information; state that it does not believe its patents are essential to the IEEE standard; say it will not assert its essential patent claims against implementers of the standard; or commit to license its essential patent claims on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms.

The policy makes those assurances irrevocable and binding on affiliates of the patent holder.

Under DOJ's business review procedure, an organization may submit a proposed action to the antitrust division and receive a statement as to whether the government will challenge it.