FTC Issues Agenda for Workshop to Explore the Role of Patented Technology in Collaborative Industry Standards

The Federal Trade Commission today released the agenda for a public workshop addressing legal and policy issues surrounding the inclusion of patented technology in collaboratively set industry standards. The workshop will be held on June 21, 2011, starting at 9:30 a.m., at the FTC’s Conference Center at 601 New Jersey Avenue, NW, Washington, DC. Commissioner Edith Ramirez will provide opening remarks and Joseph Farrell, Director of the Bureau of Economics, will offer closing remarks. Industry experts will participate in roundtable discussions of key issues.

The workshop is part of a project, described in a May 13, 2011, Federal Register Notice, to examine responses to the “hold-up” of interoperability standards. When industry-wide standards incorporate technologies that are protected by intellectual property rights, they raise the potential for “hold-up” by a patent owner – a demand for higher royalties or other more-costly licensing terms after the standard is implemented than could have been obtained before the standard was chosen. Hold-up subverts the competitive process of choosing among technologies during standard-setting and undermines the integrity of those activities. Consumers can be harmed if manufacturers pass on higher costs resulting from hold-up. The FTC standards project is intended to examine the various means by which standard-setting organizations and industry participants attempt to prevent “hold-up.”

The workshop is free and open to the public. All attendees will be required to display a current driver’s license or other valid form of photo identification. Pre-registration for the workshop is not necessary, but is encouraged, so that we may better plan for the event. To pre-register, send your name and affiliation to standardsproject@ftc.gov. Those who cannot attend can view a live webcast of the event. Additional information and a link to the webcast will be available here.

Written comments on the subject matter of the project are welcome. More information on how to submit comments can be found here.

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