IEEE

Wi-Fi 6 improvements resulting in more litigation

In the first article of a two-part series posted on IPWatchdog, Samuel Baird, Director of Analytics at Unified Patents, and Craig Thompson, GM/COO for Unified Consulting, recently used OPEN’s IEEE and OPAL’s Wi-Fi 6 landscape to understand how 3GPP technologies have migrated in Wi-Fi 6. With these core technologies now embedded with Wi-Fi 6, this creates an SEP monetization target, which ultimately leads to more litigation. In addition, the recent changes to the IEEE’s IPR rules introduce more uncertainty about what is permitted to be used in assessing a RAND rate and remove some of the restrictions on licensors seeking injunctions. With more companies invested into Wi-Fi 6 and the rule change that has created uncertainty, this will only lead to more litigation.

In Part II, the research will look at how the IEEE’s recent IPR rule changes will affect the trends and technologies detailed in the first post.

Click HERE to read the entire article.

Comprehensive Empirical Study on Multiple SSO IPR Policy Revisions Shows No Effect On Participation

In a new study by Boston University’s Timothy Simcoe and Qing Zhang from Charles River Associates (using support from Unified’s OPEN platform and Edge / Patent Quality Initiative), the pair researched the impact of changes to Standard Setting Organization (SSO) intellectual property rights (IPR) policies on participation, standardization, and innovation for two well-known IPR policy revisions: a 2003 World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) switch from Fair Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) to Royalty-Free licensing and a 2015 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) IPR policy revision. The study found these changes resulted in little or no measurable decline in participation or innovation in patent-intensive parts of either SSO. The results held for both the W3C and IEEE across numerous measures and “treatment” vs “control” group comparisons. These quantitative findings appear to contradict the theory that revisions to licensing policy alter participation in any meaningful way.

To download the entire article, visit SSRN HERE.

Unified seeking additional IEEE, MPEG, and 3GPP training sets

Unified Patents is seeking to license and supplement existing training sets of patents found essential and nonessential to 3GPP (5G, LTE, V2X); IEEE / 802.11 / WiFi; and Video Codecs ( VVC / H.266 and AV1). The patents and applications should be reviewed by experts and mapped against the technical specifications. This would be a joint effort and collaboration to understand fundamental technologies and their corresponding patent landscape. If you are interested in participating please contact info@unifiedpatents.com

Please include in any communications:

1. Technology covered, including specification number and whether user equipment or infrastructure

2. A sample of the results

3. Number of patents covered which were found to be essential and the number which were not

4. Study Methodology