A Well-Reasoned Antitrust Division Boost for the Legitimate Exploitation of Patent Rights

Cite this Article
Alden Abbott, A Well-Reasoned Antitrust Division Boost for the Legitimate Exploitation of Patent Rights, Truth on the Market (November 15, 2017), https://truthonthemarket.com/2017/11/15/a-well-reasoned-antitrust-division-boost-for-the-legitimate-exploitation-of-patent-rights/

On November 10, at the University of Southern California Law School, Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Makan Delrahim delivered an extremely important policy address on the antitrust treatment of standard setting organizations (SSOs).  Delrahim’s remarks outlined a dramatic shift in the Antitrust Division’s approach to controversies concerning the licensing of standard essential patents (SEPs, patents that “read on” SSO technical standards) that are often subject to “fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory” (FRAND) licensing obligations imposed by SSOs.  In particular, while Delrahim noted the theoretical concerns of possible “holdups” by SEP holders (when SEP holders threaten to delay licensing until their royalty demands are met), he cogently explained why the problem of “holdouts” by implementers of SEP technologies (when implementers threaten to under-invest in the implementation of a standard, or threaten not to take a license at all, until their royalty demands are met) is a far more serious antitrust concern.  More generally, Delrahim stressed the centrality of patents as property rights, and the need for enforcers not to interfere with the legitimate unilateral exploitation of those rights (whether through licensing, refusals to license, or the filing of injunctive actions).  Underlying Delrahim’s commentary is the understanding that innovation is vitally important to the American economy, and the concern that antitrust enforcers’ efforts in recent years have threatened to undermine innovation by inappropriately interfering in free market licensing negotiations between patentees and licensees.

Important “takeaways” from Delrahim’s speech (with key quotations) are set forth below.

  • Thumb on the scale in favor of implementers: “In particular, I worry that we as enforcers have strayed too far in the direction of accommodating the concerns of technology implementers who participate in standard setting bodies, and perhaps risk undermining incentives for IP creators, who are entitled to an appropriate reward for developing break-through technologies.”
  • Striking the right balance through market forces (as opposed to government-issued best practices): “The dueling interests of innovators and implementers always are in tension, and the tension is resolved through the free market, typically in the form of freely negotiated licensing agreements for royalties or reciprocal licenses.”
  • Holdup as theoretical concern with no evidence that it’s a systemic or widespread problem: He praises Professor Carl Shapiro for his theoretical model of holdup, but stresses that “many of the proposed [antitrust] ‘solutions’ to the hold-up problem are often anathema to the policies underlying the intellectual property system envisioned by our forefathers.”
  • Rejects prior position that antitrust is only concerned with the patent-holder side of the holdup equation, stating that he’s more concerned with holdout given the nature of investments: “Too often lost in the debate over the hold-up problem is recognition of a more serious risk:  the hold-out problem. . . . I view the collective hold-out problem as a more serious impediment to innovation.  Here is why: most importantly, the hold-up and hold-out problems are not symmetric.  What do I mean by that?  It is important to recognize that innovators make an investment before they know whether that investment will ever pay off.  If the implementers hold out, the innovator has no recourse, even if the innovation is successful.  In contrast, the implementer has some buffer against the risk of hold-up because at least some of its investments occur after royalty rates for new technology could have been determined.  Because this asymmetry exists, under-investment by the innovator should be of greater concern than under-investment by the implementer.”
  • What’s at stake: “Every incremental shift in bargaining leverage toward implementers of new technologies acting in concert can undermine incentives to innovate.  I therefore view policy proposals with a one-sided focus on the hold-up issue with great skepticism because they can pose a serious threat to the innovative process.”
  • Breach of FRAND as primarily a contract or fraud, not antitrust issue: “There is a growing trend supporting what I would view as a misuse of antitrust or competition law, purportedly motivated by the fear of so-called patent hold-up, to police private commitments that IP holders make in order to be considered for inclusion in a standard.  This trend is troublesome.  If a patent holder violates its commitments to an SSO, the first and best line of defense, I submit, is the SSO itself and its participants. . . . If a patent holder is alleged to have violated a commitment to a standard setting organization, that action may have some impact on competition.  But, I respectfully submit, that does not mean the heavy hand of antitrust necessarily is the appropriate remedy for the would-be licensee—or the enforcement agency.  There are perfectly adequate and more appropriate common law and statutory remedies available to the SSO or its members.”
  • Recommends that unilateral refusals to license should be per se lawful: “The enforcement of valid patent rights should not be a violation of antitrust law.  A patent holder cannot violate the antitrust laws by properly exercising the rights patents confer, such as seeking an injunction or refusing to license such a patent.  Set aside whether taking these actions might violate the common law.  Under the antitrust laws, I humbly submit that a unilateral refusal to license a valid patent should be per se legal.  Indeed, just this Monday, Chief Judge Diane Wood, a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the Antitrust Division, stated that “[e]ven monopolists are almost never required to assist their competitors.”
  • Intent to investigate buyers’ cartel behavior in SSOs: “The prospect of hold-out offers implementers a crucial bargaining chip.  Unlike the unilateral hold-up problem, implementers can impose this leverage before they make significant investments in new technology.  . . . The Antitrust Division will carefully scrutinize what appears to be cartel-like anticompetitive behavior among SSO participants, either on the innovator or implementer side.  The old notion that ‘openness’ alone is sufficient to guard against cartel-like behavior in SSOs may be outdated, given the evolution of SSOs beyond strictly objective technical endeavors. . . . I likewise urge SSOs to be proactive in evaluating their own rules, both at the inception of the organization, and routinely thereafter.  In fact, SSOs would be well advised to implement and maintain internal antitrust compliance programs and regularly assess whether their rules, or the application of those rules, are or may become anticompetitive.”
  • Basing royalties on the “smallest salable component” as a requirement by a concerted agreement of implementers is a possible antitrust violation: “If an SSO pegs its definition of “reasonable” royalties to a single Georgia-Pacific factor that heavily favors either implementers or innovators, then the process that led to such a rule deserves close antitrust scrutiny.  While the so-called ‘smallest salable component’ rule may be a useful tool among many in determining patent infringement damages for multi-component products, its use as a requirement by a concerted agreement of implementers as the exclusive determinant of patent royalties may very well warrant antitrust scrutiny.”
  • Right to Injunctive Relief and holdout incentives: “Patents are a form of property, and the right to exclude is one of the most fundamental bargaining rights a property owner possesses.  Rules that deprive a patent holder from exercising this right—whether imposed by an SSO or by a court—undermine the incentive to innovate and worsen the problem of hold-out.  After all, without the threat of an injunction, the implementer can proceed to infringe without a license, knowing that it is only on the hook only for reasonable royalties.”
  • Seeking or Enforcing Injunctive Relief Generally a Contract Not Antitrust Issue: “It is just as important to recognize that a violation by a patent holder of an SSO rule that restricts a patent-holder’s right to seek injunctive relief should be appropriately the subject of a contract or fraud action, and rarely if ever should be an antitrust violation.”
  • FRAND is Not a Compulsory Licensing Scheme: “We should not transform commitments to license on FRAND terms into a compulsory licensing scheme.  Indeed, we have had strong policies against compulsory licensing, which effectively devalues intellectual property rights, including in most of our trade agreements, such as the TRIPS agreement of the WTO.  If an SSO requires innovators to submit to such a scheme as a condition for inclusion in a standard, we should view the SSO’s rule and the process leading to it with suspicion, and certainly not condemn the use of such injunctive relief as an antitrust violation where a contract remedy is perfectly adequate.”