Update December 2009: The EC has agreed to close its investigation of Rambus in exchange for Rambus’s agreement to issue royalty free licenses for its SDR and DDR chips and to charge 1.5% for patents necessary for later chip standards, a percentage point reduction from the company’s current royalties for DDR chips. Ramus is not […]
Category Archives: Standard Setting
Failure to Disclose Patent to Standard Setting Organization Can Be Monopolization
October 15, 2009 – 11:44 am
In Actividentity Corp. v. Intercede Group PLC et al., Northern District of California Judge Vaugh R. Walker has refused to dismiss smart card maker Intercede Ltd.’s allegations that rival Actividentity Corp. monopolized the relevant market by failing to disclose to a standards-setting organization a patent covering technology for remotely updating the devices. The court held […]
9th Circuit Revives Web Domain Name Case
June 9, 2009 – 1:08 pm
A group calling itself the Coalition for ICANN Transparency, Inc. brought antitrust claims against Verisign, Inc., the sole entity licensed by ICANN to register .com and .net domain names. The district court dismissed the case, but the 9th Circuit reversed, holding that the complaint adequately stated antitrust claims. All parties agreed that as a practical […]
Qualcomm Patent Standard Challenge Dismissed on Standing Grounds
March 5, 2009 – 2:22 pm
In Meyer v. Qualcomm, the court dismissed the claim that Qualcomm acted anticompetitively in refusing to license patents essential to a standardized technology. The S.D. of California court ruled that the plaintiff lacked antitrust standing because the chip set it purchased included a broad package of technologies, not just the patented technology involved. Although the […]
Refusal to Include Patent in Standard Not a Restraint of Trade
October 28, 2008 – 2:57 pm
The Fifth Circuit has held that a standard setting consortium’s decision not to include Golden Bridge Techonologies patent in a cell phone related standard, by itself, cannot constitute an unreasonable restraint on trade. By its very nature, the court held, a standard setting organization must select some patents and reject others. Absent evidence of anticompetitive […]
DOJ Approves Patent Pool for High Frequency Bagage Tracking
October 22, 2008 – 9:26 am
The Antitrust Division agreed that it would challenge an agreement among seven technology companies owning patents essential to a standard for UHF RFID technology used in airline bagage tracking and event ticketing. The Division agreed that the proposal would lead to more efficient licensing and reduce the potential for blocking technology to slow the development […]
Blue-ray Chip Manufacturer Sues over Licensing of Audio Standard
October 10, 2008 – 12:43 pm
Zoran Corp., a manufacturer of chip sets used to make Blue-ray DVD players, has filed a monopolization case against DTS, Inc., licensor of the technology used to encode audio on Blue-ray discs. Zoran argues that DTS is obligated by the Blue-ray standard setting agreement to license the technology and fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms. Zoran argues that DTS […]