Identifying Benchmarks for Applying Non-Discrimination in Frand

Abstract

Standard setting organizations have for many years asked members to commit to license patents essential to use of standards on Fair, Reasonable and Non-discriminatory, or FRAND, terms. Previous work has shown how standard setting that incorporates patents can lead to complicated situations in which the patent owner, sometimes in collaboration with rival firms, can exploit the market power that is created by being designated a standard essential patent, but that the non-discriminatory provision of FRAND can be interpreted so as to mitigate the inefficiencies that can result when patent owners try to exploit their market power conferred by the standard setting process. This paper discusses the availability of appropriate benchmarks for implementing the non-discriminatory provision and shows how even when license terms for patents are not set in advance, FRAND terms can protect members of an SSO and that this protection can be implemented by using various benchmarks.