Submitted By: Access Advance LLC
Recipient: European Commission

Read a summary of Comments below or click on the button at the bottom of the page to download the Comments.

Access Advance submitted comments to the European Commission in response to the Commission’s “Public consultation on the draft revised Technology Transfer Block Exemption Regulation and Technology Transfer Guidelines.” Access Advance demonstrated in its comments that Procompetitive Patent Pools address the Commission’s concerns about transparency on rates, transparency on essentiality, and duplicate royalties in Standard Essential Patent (SEP) licensing. The Commission embodied these concerns in revisions to three of the patent pool safe harbor criteria (at par. 285 (b), (c), and (f)) and Advance addressed each in its comments.

Procompetitive Patent Pools

Not all joint licensing entities are patent pools and not all patent pools are Procompetitive Patent Pools. Access Advance defines “Procompetitive Patent Pools” as those that conform to guidance from courts and government agencies worldwide, practice “radical transparency,” and follow established best practices in pool formation and operation. These pools include only actually essential patents as determined by independent experts, are administered by independent licensing administrators, safeguard confidential information, offer the same license at fair and reasonable rates to all licensees, and allow for bilateral licensing between pool licensors and implementers who want to pursue that option.

Transparency of Procompetitive Patent Pools

Procompetitive Patent Pools inherently solve transparency issues by practicing “radical transparency” through comprehensive public disclosure on their websites. Access Advance’s websites exemplify this approach by publishing, among other licensing information, regularly updated lists of licensors and licensees, detailed royalty rates, licensing terms and conditions, essential patent lists with claim charts showing exactly which portions of the standard each patent covers, and downloadable license agreements. This level of transparency ensures that potential licensees can educate themselves about the pool’s license and operations as well as licensor and licensee obligations even before their first contact with the pool.

Procompetitive Patent Pools royalty rates are FRAND

The formation process of a Procompetitive Patent Pool naturally produces FRAND rates. By bringing together patent owners with both “licensor-driven” and “implementer-driven” business models to negotiate collectively, pools reach rates that balance those competing interests—somewhat lower than patent owners might prefer but somewhat higher than implementers might wish, resulting in a fair market compromise. And with business models driven by the incentive for efficiency through reducing friction in licensing, the compromise rates are at the low end of that range. An additional result of the pool’s efficiencies compared to bilateral licensing is that those rates are typically substantially lower than the sum of bilateral licenses for equivalent coverage, with pool licensors explicitly choosing to share pooling efficiencies with implementers in exchange for more rapid and broader market adoption.

Advance’s policies on duplicate royalties resolve the Commission’s concerns

Access Advance’s Duplicate Royalty Policy (“DRP”) is a contractual solution that addresses overlapping pool licenses by pre-netting (deducting) from duplicate licensee’s royalty invoices the amounts that otherwise would be distributed to overlapping pool licensors, and on request an estimate of the amount of that deduction. For pool licensees who prefer to deal directly with the overlapping licensors, including where based on a prior bilateral license, Access Advance will provide the parties the information they need.

The DRP and related mechanisms for dealing with potential duplicate royalties are well accepted and regularly benefit more than 100 HEVC Advance licensees with overlapping license coverage.

Advance recommends that the Commission revise its guidance for the conduct of implementers dealing with Procompetitive Patent Pools

Advance’s comments propose revised guidance recognizing that implementers dealing with Procompetitive Patent Pools practicing radical transparency should have obligations different from those set out in the Huawei v ZTE model exchanges. These obligations should include: to determine if a patent pool exists for licenses to the particular standard; if it does, to educate themselves about the pool by studying the information available on the pool’s website; to proactively initiate licensing discussions with the pool; and to act in good faith throughout the process. Implementers failing to meet these obligations should face a rebuttable presumption of “unwillingness,” and courts therefore should be empowered to grant injunctive relief.

This proposed new framework would benefit willing licensees, promote fair competition, reduce transaction costs, accelerate standard adoption, and ultimately benefit consumers as well through more diverse and competitive downstream markets for standard-compliant products and services.

Download the submission to read the complete response.