One of the world s leading standards setting bodies the IEEE explain that after a patent is deem essential to an IEEE standard the patent holder is ask to submit a letter of assurance LOA guaranteeing fair and reasonable terms. The LOA process is to ask patent holders if they are willing to grant licenses on Reasonable and Non Discriminatory … terms the brief reads.

The term reasonable however is inherently

Vague and the ability of patent commitments to protect against hold up is thus imperfect. Sometimes this vagueness and the consequent inability of parties to agree on a Turkey Telegram Number Data negotiat reasonable license will lead to expensive litigation whose cost and risk can impe the adoption of a socially valuable standard the brief continues. Even without litigation the ex post negotiation of license terms that is negotiations occurring after a technology s inclusion in a standard can lead to higher royalty payments and ultimately higher prices to consumers. And while standard setting was once compris of a bunch of engineers taking their time to determine what was st for the technology the process has come increasingly pressuriz and competitive a trend Lerner attributes to industry response to success of companies like Qualcomm in the licensing market.

The company s technology licensing

Business report revenues of over . billion in fiscal pdf . Over the course of the s the representation of executives in standards setting organizations has gotten larger Lerner Canada Phone Number List says. Standards bodies move slower and are more politiciz than they us to . Simply allowing participants to discuss royalty rates would not  a cure all. Not only would such discussions raise antitrust concerns about collusion but as the authors explain in the paper price discussions within the standard setting process run the risk of expropriation of  organizations potentially will blackmail IP owners to accept low prices in exchange for their functionalities ing select into the standard.