Owners Of Standard-essential Patents Research Articles

Do Standard-Essential Patent Owners Behave Opportunistically? Evidence From U.S. District Court Dockets

Abstract To what extent and with what effect do owners of standard-essential patents (SEPs) “hold-up” companies that produce standard-compliant products? To explore this question, we construct measures of opportunistic patent licensing behaviors using detailed information collected from the dockets of U.S. patent cases filed (2010–2019) to enforce SEPs and a matched sample of non-SEPs. Overall, we find evidence of at least one opportunistic behavior by the patent enforcer in approximately 77% of SEP and 65% of non-SEP assertions in court. However, these figures mask important heterogeneity across types of conduct. There is significantly more opportunistic conduct that tends to increase a potential licensee’s loss if the patent enforcer prevails in court: 35% of SEP assertions versus 10% of non-SEP assertions. In contrast, conduct that tends to increase a potential licensee’s litigation costs is less common, and the difference between SEP assertions (8%) and non-SEP assertions (6%) is small. We also show that opportunistic behavior is associated with case settlement, with the direction and strength of the correlation depending on the type of opportunistic behavior. Behavior that increases a potential licensee’s litigation costs is associated with an increase in the probability of settlement, while behavior that increases a potential licensee’s loss if the patent enforcer prevails in court is negatively associated with settlement.

Standard Essential Patents: A Comparative Study of India, UK, and USA

Standard essential patents (SEPs) are patents that are essential to a particular industry standard and are necessary for competitors to create compatible products. SEPs are particularly important in industries such as telecommunications and electronics, where interoperability is critical. This research project aims to provide a comparative analysis of SEPs in India, the UK, and the USA. The dissertation will examine the legal, economic, and policy frameworks that shape the functioning of the SEP ecosystem in each jurisdiction and will identify similarities and differences between the three countries. The research will involve a combination of data collection methods, including legal and policy analysis, economic analysis, and qualitative interviews with industry experts and policymakers. The dissertation aims to contribute to a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities posed by SEPs and to inform policy decisions that can support innovation and competition in these industries. The study will examine the legal, economic, and policy frameworks that shape the functioning of the SEP ecosystem in each jurisdiction. The research questions will focus on identifying the similarities and differences in the use and regulation of SEPs, as well as the challenges and opportunities posed by these patents in each jurisdiction. The data collection methods will include legal analysis, economic analysis, and policy analysis. The data analysis will employ a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. The findings of this study will contribute to a better understanding of the role of SEPs in promoting innovation and competition in different industries and jurisdictions. Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) have become an essential component of modern communication technologies. SEPs owners have to license their patents on Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) terms to implementers of the standard. However, disputes often arise between SEP owners and implementers over the licensing terms. This paper provides an overview of the legal and policy frameworks for SEPs in India, the UK and the USA, along with a comparative analysis of these frameworks. The paper also discusses emerging issues in SEPs and their international aspects. Additionally, the paper examines case laws related to SEPs in each of the jurisdictions. The key findings of this paper highlight that while the legal and policy frameworks for SEPs vary across jurisdictions, they all aim to strike a balance between the interests of SEP owners and implementers. Dispute resolution mechanisms such as mediation, arbitration, and litigation are available in each jurisdiction to resolve disputes related to SEPs. However, the effectiveness of these mechanisms depends on the specific circumstances of each dispute. The paper also suggests that there is a need for further research on emerging issues related to SEPs, such as the impact of SEPs on competition and innovation. Finally, the paper provides recommendations for policymakers and practitioners on how to improve the legal and policy frameworks for SEPs. Overall, this paper provides a comprehensive overview of SEPs and their legal and policy frameworks in three important jurisdictions. It also highlights the importance of effective dispute resolution mechanisms and the need for further research on emerging issues related to SEPs.

Antisuit injunctions in SEP disputes and the recent EU's WTO/TRIPS case against China

AbstractThe existence of standard essential patents (SEPs)—and the associated litigation—has potentially disruptive consequences for the manufacture, marketing and distribution of complex products that incorporate many patented standards, for example, information and communication technology (ICT) products such as smartphones that incorporate a camera, video, web browser, wireless communications, text messaging, and so on, as well as an increasing number of ‘connected’ Internet of Things products such as wearable devices and ‘smart home’ devices. Indeed, SEP owners may use the patent enforcement system to prevent implementers of these technologies from bringing to market competing products that use the same standards. As is known, this raises concerns about competition in the market and the need to maintain interoperability to ensure the development of the ICT industry. One of the legal tools which can be used by implementers to (try to) neutralise SEP holders' anticompetitive behaviours is the ‘antisuit injunction’ (ASI). ASIs are not uncommon in common law jurisdictions while they are foreign to civil law countries within the European Union (EU). ASIs are particularly useful to SEP implementers when patent holders disrespect their commitment to license their patents on a FRAND basis. For example, a judge who is in the process of assessing whether the SEP owner complies with FRAND terms may at the same time grant an ASI to stop the patentee taking patent infringement actions in other jurisdictions until the FRAND litigation has been concluded. In February 2022, the EU filed a complaint at the World Trade Organization (WTO), arguing that China's use of ASIs prevents EU‐based companies from properly protecting their SEPs. Indeed, ASIs have recently been granted in several Chinese disputes, including in Huawei v Conversant and Xiaomi v. InterDigital. More specifically, China's Supreme People's Court held that Chinese courts can use ASIs to prevent SEP owners from filing disputes in any foreign courts to enforce their patents; and that anyone who does not comply with the injunction should be fined €130,000 per day. In the WTO case the EU notes that such a case law jeopardises innovation and growth in Europe, ‘effectively depriving European technology companies of the possibility to exercise and enforce the rights that give them a technological edge’. From a legal perspective, according to the EU, China's conduct is in violation of various Trade‐Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) provisions, including Article 28 which grants exclusive rights to patent owners. The paper focuses on this EU–China WTO/TRIPS dispute and more generally, on the relevance of ASIs within SEP cases.

Downsides of Using Inadequate Open Source Software Processes and Licenses within Standard Development Organizations

Standard Development Organizations (SDO) and Open Source Software (OSS) Projects offer two different models for open and collaborative innovation. While SDO standards have interacted with independent OSS projects for a long time, an increasing number of SDOs are themselves hosting OSS projects, notably for the development tools or for reference implementations of their standards. While policy makers and industry stakeholders have rightly identified the potential benefits of tighter integration of OSS and SDO processes, the potential downsides of this integration are insufficiently understood. An OSS reference implementation sponsored by the SDO itself has the potential to dominate the market for standard-compliant implementations. SDO participants may feel compelled to participate in the OSS project, as decisions made in the development of the OSS implementation will influence standardization outcomes and determine how the standard will be used. It is thus a significant concern when formal and influential SDOs develop OSS reference implementations of their standards under a license that is incompatible with the SDO’s balanced patent policy, and using processes that do not reflect the SDO’s commitment to openness and consensus decision-making. When SDOs use inadequate licenses, owners of standard-essential patents (SEP) participating in the OSS project may be deprived of the possibility to collect royalty revenue from the licensing of their SEP. For SEP owners unwilling to forfeit this royalty revenue, participation in the standard development itself becomes unattractive, as they are excluded from significant parts of the decision-making, as well as from using the dominant implementation of the standard. We illustrate these potential risks using the case of Open Source MANO (OSM), an OSS project of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).

Open Source Software and Standards Development: Competition Law Implications

Technical standards developed by standards development organizations (“SDOs”) increasingly involve software-based solutions that implicate open source software (“OSS”). SDOs generally operate pursuant to policies and procedures based on principles of consensus, due process, balance, and openness, and subject to consensus-defined intellectual property rights (“IPR”) policies that contemplate inclusion of patented solutions in standards. Consequently, SDO policies help incentivise IPR owners to contribute their new and innovative technologies to standards by providing owners of Standard Essential Patents (“SEPs”) the opportunity to offer licenses for their IPR on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (“FRAND”) terms. Open source projects are often pursued in consortia or similar forums, which typically do not fully observe such procedural principles, and do not contemplate FRAND patent licensing, or patent licensing at all. However, traditional SDO standards activities and open source projects are not mutually exclusive, and both can drive innovation and competitiveness. As noted by the European Commission’s 2017 communication on the EU’s approach to SEPs, integration between open source projects and standards development processes may be “a win-win situation,” and “[f]lexible and effective interactions between standardisation and open source communities will promote and accelerate the uptake of advanced technology developments.” This paper considers the competition law implications of integrating standards development and open source efforts, to help facilitate that potential “win-win” outcome, and achieve the procompetitive goals of standards development, rather than create risks of competitive harm that will deter innovation. This paper submits that consensus-based approaches to standards development, where account is taken of all stakeholder interests, and which abide by principles of openness, balance and due process, should apply equally when SDOs accommodate open source projects. Experience shows that such procedural safeguards are fundamental to avoid potential anticompetitive effects resulting from imposiing IPR policies that favour discrete stakeholder interests. This paper further explains that EU and US competition law provide the necessary tools to challenge conduct related to standardization and open source licensing that may diminish competition and innovation.

Do Standard-Essential Patent Owners Behave Opportunistically? Evidence from U.S. District Court Dockets

Do owners of standard-essential patents (SEPs) holdup companies that produce standard-compliant products? To explore this question, we use detailed information from the dockets of all U.S. patent cases filed 2010-2019 that assert or challenge SEPs to construct measures of opportunistic conduct by SEP licensors, including actions that took place before the lawsuit was filed. We find evidence of opportunistic behavior by the SEP enforcer in at least 75% of SEP assertions in court, and we analyze various factors that determine which opportunistic behaviors SEP enforcers rely on. We also show that opportunistic behavior can affect case outcomes, although the effect on settlement is ambiguous. Some behaviors increase the likelihood of a settlement, while others decrease it.

Looking Back to the Future—Selective SEP Licensing Through a Competition Law Lens?

Looking Back to the Future—Selective SEP Licensing Through a Competition Law Lens? Evelina Kurgonaitė, Evelina Kurgonaitė Secretary General at the Fair Standards Alliance (FSA) Evelina Kurgonaitė is a Secretary General at the Fair Standards Alliance (FSA). Pat Treacy is The Head of the Competition Team at Bristows LLP in London and Brussels. Edwin Bond is an associate at Bristows LLP. Representing over 45 small and large companies operating in different sectors around the world, FSA advocates fair and more transparent licensing of standard essential patents (SEPs). Most FSA members implement connectivity technology standards, and many members own SEP portfolios. The FSA is not a client of Bristows LLP. Bristows LLP has advised and represented both SEP owners and licensees for a number of years. The views expressed in this article are personal, reflecting an interest in the past and future evolution of FRAND. They do not necessarily represent the opinions of the FSA, Bristows LLP, or any client or clients of Bristows LLP. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Pat Treacy, Pat Treacy The Head of the Competition Team at Bristows LLP in London and Brussels Evelina Kurgonaitė is a Secretary General at the Fair Standards Alliance (FSA). Pat Treacy is The Head of the Competition Team at Bristows LLP in London and Brussels. Edwin Bond is an associate at Bristows LLP. Representing over 45 small and large companies operating in different sectors around the world, FSA advocates fair and more transparent licensing of standard essential patents (SEPs). Most FSA members implement connectivity technology standards, and many members own SEP portfolios. The FSA is not a client of Bristows LLP. Bristows LLP has advised and represented both SEP owners and licensees for a number of years. The views expressed in this article are personal, reflecting an interest in the past and future evolution of FRAND. They do not necessarily represent the opinions of the FSA, Bristows LLP, or any client or clients of Bristows LLP. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Edwin Bond Edwin Bond Bristows LLP Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of European Competition Law & Practice, Volume 11, Issue 3-4, March-April 2020, Pages 133–146, https://doi.org/10.1093/jeclap/lpaa003 Published: 04 March 2020 Article history Received: 04 November 2019 Revision received: 23 January 2020 Revision requested: 29 January 2020 Accepted: 30 January 2020 Published: 04 March 2020

Disentangling the FRAND Conundrum

Courts, antitrust authorities, and policy makers across the world have been over concerned by holdup risks involving the strategic use of standard essential patents (SEPs). In order to avoid or at least mitigate holdup problems, it has been adopted the view that a fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) commitment implies a waiver of the right to seek injunctions against infringers. However, contrary to the mainstream belief, there is no empirical evidence of structural and systematic problems of holdup and royalty stacking affecting SEPs licensing. Therefore, there is no convincing reason for laying down an exceptional antitrust treatment for FRAND-encumbered patents. Problems afflicting SEP licensing stems from the lack of contractual or organizational solutions provided by standard setting organizations (SSOs) which exacerbates the risk of strategic behaviors. First and foremost, SSOs should require all SEP owners involved in a standardization process to disclose, ahead of the standard adoption, the most restrictive licensing terms. Secondly, since holdup and royalty stacking problems increase proportionally with the number of SEPs and many patents declared essential by SSOs lack this characteristic, essentiality checks carried out by independent third parties should be imposed to mitigate the risk of over-declaration.

Unwired Planet v Huawei – is FRAND appealing?

The Court of Appeal delivered its eagerly awaited judgment in the appeal filed against Birss J's judgment in the Unwired Planet v Huawei case on 23 October 2018. Birss J's judgment included an analysis of some of the most controversial issues related to standard essential patents (SEPs) and particularly the fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) concept. The Court of Appeal reviewed these issues and handed down a judgment (together with Birss J's judgment) that has the potential to become a legal foundation for SEP-related disputes in England. It is highly likely that these judgments will also provide a guidance to courts in other jurisdictions and shape the practice in this highly dynamic and developing area. The judgments also represent the English courts’ unbiased view towards SEP owners.

THE SMALLEST SALABLE PATENT PRACTICING UNIT AND COMPONENT LICENSING: WHY $1 IS NOT $1

ABSTRACT The smallest salable patent pricing unit (SSPPU) is a valuation method used as a preliminary step toward the calculation of fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory royalties for licenses over standard-essential patents (SEPs). Under SSPPU, royalties should reflect the value added to the smallest salable component implementing the patented invention. In this paper, we discuss policy-making proposals to convert SSPPU into a pricing rule that not only assists the assessment of SEPs’ added value but also forces the specification of royalties terms as a share of component costs in SEP licensing negotiations. We call this new rule SSPPU+ and we show that it distorts the distribution of surplus between SEP owners and implementers by laying down a revenue cap on standardized technologies. Therefore, a change in the royalty basis is not neutral and $1 is not $1. Furthermore, SSPPU+ imposes uniform pricing of SEPs across different industries and does not allow SEP owners to take advantage of complementarities between technologies. This pleads against a generalization of SSPPU+ at early standardization and negotiation stages.

The Effect of Competition Law on Patent Remedies

Although competition law and IP law probably pursue complementary goals, competition laws can: (i) affect remedies available for patent infringement; and/or otherwise, (ii) limit the conduct of patentees, particularly when transferring or licensing their patents. This chapter discusses the cases in which tensions between the protection of patents in complex products and the competition laws have arisen or may arise, particularly as regards the ability of owners of standard essential patents (SEPs) to monetise their patents either by seeking an injunction against implementers or by refusing to grant licences complying with previously given commitments—generally, commitments to license on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) terms. This chapter also examines potential competition law constraints on the pricing of patent licences, other licensing terms, multi-level licensing and level discrimination, patent pools, sale of patent portfolios and patent acquisitions.

Why Patent Hold-Up Does Not Violate Antitrust Law

Owners of standard essential patents (SEPs) are cast as villains for engaging in “patent hold-up,” i.e., taking advantage of the fact that they negotiate royalties with implementer-licensees that already have made sunk investments in the standard. In contrast to “patent ambush,” patent hold-up involves no standard-setting misconduct or harm to any competitive process, and thus cannot violate antitrust law. Commentators taking a contrary positions confuse the ends of antitrust law with its means. Antitrust law promotes consumer welfare only by protecting competition. Casting aside this core principle would expose business decisions, including ordinary price setting, to judicial oversight. Commitments made by SEP owners in the standard-setting process, however, should be enforced, and they are enforced. Without an antitrust cause of action, implementers invoke the powers of the courts to resolve royalty disputes over SEPs.

International protection of standard essential patents

Technical standards in the mobile communications industry have been developed from national to regional and from regional to global. In the current era, global standards in the industry have enabled the formation of a single global market. However, because standard essential patents (SEPs) are territorial given the nature of the patent system, they can function as an opportunity or a threat depending on whether or not they are protected in countries of interest. This paper investigates how W-CDMA and LTE SEPs are globally distributed. From the analysis, the current study discovers SEP owners' strategies, future opportunities, and threats in their international businesses.

What Aggregate Royalty Do Manufacturers of Mobile Phones Pay to License Standard-Essential Patents?

For a decade or more, proponents of the royalty-stacking conjecture have claimed that, when an end-user product (such as the smartphone) incorporates multiple standard-essential patents (SEPs), the aggregate SEP royalty might be so high as to make it infeasible for manufacturers to make a standard-compliant product. A decade’s worth of royalty-stacking claims in the academic literature and in patent-infringement litigation begs this question: what is the aggregate royalty actually paid for SEPs used in standard-compliant products — specifically, smartphones? In 2015, Keith Mallinson, an engineering consultant in the mobile telecommunications industry, supplied an elegantly simple answer. He estimated the total monetary burden that royalties for mobile communications SEPs actually impose on manufacturers of mobile handsets and then compared that aggregate royalty to total global handset revenues for 2014. Mallinson found that the aggregate royalty for 2G, 3G, and 4G SEPs was approximately 5 percent of global handset revenues. I replicate Mallinson’s important study. I am able to confirm his results with publicly available data and my own analysis of a dataset on mobile handset sales in 2013 and 2014. In this article, I first explain Mallinson’s methodology. I then separately examine the revenues of major SEP owners, patent pools, large implementers of SEPs, and patent-assertion entities (PAEs). I show that, even using large assumed values for balancing payments in cross licenses, the aggregate SEP royalty that implementers paid in 2013 and 2014 was between 4 and 5 percent of global handset revenues for handsets practicing the 3G and 4G standards.

How Antitrust Law Can Make FRAND Commitments More Effective

The antitrust laws can play an important role in ensuring that the rules established by standard setting organizations are effective in preventing the owners of standard-essential patents from engaging in patent holdup. We explain here that both standard-setting organizations and their members can violate Section 1 of the Sherman Act if the rules adopted are ineffective in preventing the owners of standard-essential patents from exploiting the monopoly power they gain as a result of the standard.

Licensing At All Levels Is The Rule Under The ETSI IPR Policy: A Response to Dr. Bertram Huber

As the former Director-General of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), Mr. Rosenbrock has followed with interest the various discussions and disputes regarding the application of the ETSI IPR Policy. The ETSI IPR Policy was drafted, debated and finalized during his tenure, and he was closely involved in its creation and approval and has followed further discussions within ETSI. In a recent paper, Mr. Rosenbrock explained that a promise to license Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) on fair, reasonable and non‐discriminatory (FRAND) terms and conditions, under the ETSI IPR Policy, “allows every company that requests a license to obtain one, regardless of where the prospective licensee is in the chain of production and regardless of whether the prospective licensee is active upstream or downstream”. Dr. Bertram Huber wrote a response to this paper, on behalf of a group of SEP owners called IP Europe. Mr. Rosenbrock’s new paper rebuts the arguments of Dr. Huber and those who seek to undermine the principle of “licensing at all levels”. In particular, the paper confirms: • First, that a promise to license SEPs on FRAND terms and conditions, under the ETSI IPR Policy, allows every company that requests a license to obtain one, regardless of whether the prospective licensee is active upstream or downstream; • Second, that companies like Ericsson and Qualcomm, which now oppose upstream licensing of SEPs, for many years supported it; and • Third, that “end-use royalties” could be misused to pervert the “license to all” principle.

Tying, Exclusivity, and Standard-Essential Patents

When a technological standard is adopted, implementers must pay to license all “standard-essential” patents (SEPs)—those covering core features of the standard—although the particular price terms usually cannot negotiated beforehand. To allay implementers’ fear of being “held up,” SEP owners usually make commitments to offer licenses on “fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory” (FRAND) terms. Among other things, this acts as a contractual price control for SEP licenses—albeit an imprecise one that is subject to judicial interpretation. Aside from licenses, an SEP holder may further supply an important “collateral input”—one that is not subject to the FRAND pledge, but which implementers nevertheless require in order to market a viable product. For example, this might be a physical component of the final product. The SEP holder might tie its SEP rights to the collateral input. It might also engage exclusive dealing or related practices, such as a “loyalty discounting” arrangement that imposes larger royalties on implementers who buy the input from competing providers. Importantly, FRAND’s operation as a price control significantly alters the economic analysis: here the primary impetus for tying may be to circumvent the price control by shifting the desired overcharge to the tied good—a concern that does not arise when a seller has complete autonomy over its pricing (as is usually the case). The natural result may be to foreclose competitors’ input sales. Such restraints have received little attention in the FRAND literature, but they are an emerging concern for innovation and competition policy. They have recently been attacked in two high-profile complaints filed against Qualcomm—one by the Federal Trade Commission, and the other by Apple. Against this backdrop, this article provides a legal and economic evaluation of tying and exclusive dealing arrangements in FRAND licensing. Such practices may act to undermine the FRAND price control, potentially violating the SEP holder’s commitment. The case for antitrust intervention is harder to make, but in principle the arrangement could act to exclude actual or potential competition in the collateral input market, bringing it within antitrust’s reach. I conclude by offering several policy recommendations for how courts and standard setting organizations might address these tying and exclusivity arrangements.

Smallest Salable Patent Practicing Unit and Component Licensing - Why 1$ is Not 1$

The Smallest Salable Patent Pricing Unit (SSPPU) is a valuation method used by courts and some Standard Setting Organizations (SSOs) as a preliminary step towards the calculation of fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) royalties for licenses over Standard-Essential Patents (SEPs). Under SSPPU, royalties should reflect the value added to the smallest salable component implementing the patented invention. In this paper, we discuss plans to convert SSPPU into a pricing rule that not only assists the assessment of SEPs added-value, but also forces the specification of royalties terms as a share of component costs in SEP licensing negotiations (I). We call this rule SSPPU , and show that it distorts the distribution of surplus between SEP owners and implementers by laying down a hidden revenue-cap on standardized technologies (II). We then predict that the distributional effect of SSPPU may be accompanied by adverse efficiency effects when SEPs cover General Purpose Technologies (“GPT”) (III). This pleads against a generalization of SSPPU at early standardization and negotiation stages.

The Huawei Case and Its Aftermath: a New Test for a New Type of Abuse

Competition law sets limits on the exercise of intellectual property rights by dominant companies, namely in cases involving standard essential patents (SEPs). This article will examine the framework for SEP owners’ right to seek an injunction, discussing competitive problems that such situations may cause as well as the solutions adopted by the European Institutions, comparing them with the US and Japanese approach, and finally reflecting upon the opportunity for a new test for a new type of abuse. Although the three legal orders – US, EU and Japan – apply different laws establishing a general presumption against injunctions in SEPs encumbered with FRAND commitments, their goal is the same: to protect the interest of the SEP holder to obtain a remuneration without an abusive recourse to injunctions. I will argue that, in the EU, the Huawei case created a new test for a new type of abuse, improving the comprehensibility and certainty for the companies involved in standardization across Europe and allowing the harmonization of national judicial solutions regarding the seeking of injunctions in the SEPs context. In spite of some uncertainties, the new test clarifies the role that competition rules should play in cases of abuses by SEPs owners

Extra-Jurisdictional Remedies Involving Patent Licensing

In the last several years, competition agencies around the world have imposed or considered imposing extra-jurisdictional remedies on patent holders, particularly owners of standard-essential patents (SEPs) upon which the patent holder has made a commitment to license on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. For example, in January 2013, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) entered into a consent agreement with Motorola Mobility and its parent, Google, that, except in limited circumstances, prohibits the companies worldwide from seeking injunctive relief against infringers of any FRAND-assured SEP in its global portfolio. Similarly, the Korea Fair Trade Commission and the Taiwan Fair Trade Commission are reportedly considering imposing worldwide restraints on Qualcomm’s enforcement of its global patent portfolio in order to remedy alleged competition violations involving the company’s patent licensing practices. Imposing worldwide remedies can conflict with principles of international comity and result in significant substantive conflicts with the antitrust agencies of other countries given the wide variety of approaches taken globally on antitrust matters involving intellectual property rights (IPRs), particularly with respect to honoring an IPR holder’s core right to exclude. This has the potential to produce significant negative effects on competition and welfare, particularly if conduct that is widely considered to be generally procompetitive is the object of the worldwide prohibition. Even when attacking universally condemned activity such as price fixing, global remedies risk overdeterrence when national authorities do not coordinate to adjust the penalties they impose. Moreover, as explained below, extra-jurisdictional remedies are likely unnecessary to resolve any alleged harm to consumers in the jurisdiction imposing them. Each competition agency forgoing global remedies does not prevent competition law solutions to global harms, and is appropriate to mitigate the risk of overdeterrence. Honoring principles of comity also can mitigate a race to the bottom in competition law enforcement by preventing the lowest common denominator approach to competition law remedies from governing across the board. Indeed, some, including officials at the highest levels of the U.S. government, have raised concerns that foreign governments may be “using numerous mechanisms, including [antitrust laws] to lower the value of foreign-owned patents” in order to benefit those within their countries who implement foreign technology ; that is, the competition authority may be enforcing competition law not solely to protect their consumers from potentially anticompetitive licensing practices, but also to benefit local implementers or a “national champion” in a way that is inconsistent with the procompetitive goals of the competition laws of other jurisdictions. While competition officials across the globe have emphatically denied such claims, imposing welfare reducing global remedies on patent licensing, in addition to reducing competition and welfare, will also draw increased criticism and threaten to harm an agency’s credibility with stakeholders, the international antitrust community, and the public. This article discusses the various approaches taken thus far, as exemplified by four recent decisions: one by the FTC against Google/MMI; two by the European Commission (DG Comp) against Motorola and Samsung, respectively; and one by China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) against Qualcomm. In contrast with the FTC’s investigation, the latter three limit remedies to the patent holder’s domestic practices in the licensing of their domestic patents (i.e., activity and patents within the territory of the investigating authority), illustrating nicely remedies that are consistent with principles of international comity.