Please Note: This event has already taken place.
Standards, Patents and Antitrust
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
12:00 PM to 1:00 PM
Boston Bar Association - 16 Beacon Street, Boston, MA
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Description:
Standards play a critical role in our increasingly networked world, providing
the technological glue that enables complex independently-designed products to
work together well. At the same time, standards are often a joint
endeavor of competing firms, many of whom may own patents in the underlying
technology. Thus, litigation involving industry standards often raises
thorny legal and economic questions of interest to both intellectual property
and antitrust attorneys. This session will feature a litigator and
economist discussing key issues from several recent antitrust cases from the
District of Massachusetts, the First Circuit and other federal courts around the
country involving industry standards and intellectual property.
Topics will include:
- What exactly does it mean to agree to license on Fair
Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) terms in the standards
context? How might this issue play out in later litigation or government
investigations?
- When does the decision to exclude a firm's technology
from the standard constitute a group boycott? How does the fact that the
excluded technology was patented impact the analysis? What must a plaintiff
prove to plead a conspiracy in this context? What are the applicable defenses?
- How might Standard Setting Organizations' policies be enforced under
antitrust, contract and patent law? What are the trade-offs among these
different types of claims?
Sponsoring Section/Committee(s):
Speakers:
Contact:
Elizabeth Vincensi
evincensi@bostonbar.org
BBA Event Calendar