UK government's Open Standards Consultation – A step in the wrong direction?

Abstract

This paper comments on UK government's Open Standards Consultation which opened on 7 February 2012. It questions the UK government's mandating of open standards defined as standards which include patents licensed on a royalty free basis. The paper suggests that instead of promoting a level playing field, the government's policy will actually restrict competition and hinder interoperability. This policy is contrary to EU policy in a number of different fields which have all accepted, despite significant in-depth debate on this issue, that the best way to ensure the most effective competition, innovation and interoperability is to allow both royalty free patents and royalty bearing patents to compete provided the latter are licensed on FRAND terms. Lastly the paper suggests that the public procurement rules are not the place to apply industrial policy, instead a full market analysis should be conducted involving other government departments such as BIS and the IPO.