European Commission Issues Guidelines On Licensing And Litigating Standard-Essential Patents

On November 29, 2017, the European Commission published its long-awaited guidance on litigating and licensing standard-essential patents (SEPs), as part of broader guidelines for intellectual property in the European Union (EU).

The communication is part of broader efforts in the EU to bolster intellectual property rights in Europe, and follows a series of similar efforts in the related fields of trademarks and copyrights. In the patent context, many readers will recall the EU's long push to establish the Unified Patent Court (UPC) – a centralized court for the enforcement of European patents – whose implementation is currently stalled pending ratification by the U.K. and the resolution of a constitutional challenge in Germany.