IP Management

Innovation Council Q&A with Peter Frampton

In this Innovation Council Q&A, Peter Frampton, co-founder of Wealthvox and developer of the Color Accounting Learning System, discusses his journey to create a conceptual framework that better looks at how accounting and business finance work. It involves the use of color-coding, mapping, linguistic clarification, sound effects, and deliberate sequencing and layering of concepts. He discusses how the innovative system has upgraded corporate financial conversations by helping to analyze clients’ internal financial processes and offered financial tools to high schools, colleges, and even the American Institute of CPAs using the curricula across North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. He talks about the continuous process to apply for patents and how they have been using a number of trademarks and licensing agreements to ensure they are able to share and protect their IP.

Click here to read our Q&A.

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Innovation Council Interview with JIPA on DEI and IP issues

The Japanese IP Association, JIPA, recently interviewed Innovation Council Director Jennifer Brant about her work on DEI and intellectual property issues.

See here for the full interview, which has been produced in Japanese.

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Learn2Protect (L2Pro) Your IP Management Tools

Learn2Protect (L2Pro) is a pro bono initiative coming out from Qualcomm with the law firm Adams&Adams that offers free online IP management tools. L2Pro Africa is specifically targeted at start-ups, SMEs, and researchers in Africa to help provide information on patents, trademarks, industrial designs and copyright to help protect, secure, and maximise their innovations. 

The content currently includes information for 7 jurisdictions including Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, ARIPO, and OAPI, with more expansion expected in the next year.

See here for the flyer for L2Pro Africa and here for the L2Pro Africa website for more information.

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Innovation Council and GLIPA Roundtable on July 8th – Emerging Best Practices from IP Offices: Stakeholder Engagement and Outreach

Innovation Council and GLIPA have partnered together to host a roundtable discussion titled ” Emerging Best Practices from IP Offices: Stakeholder Engagement and Outreach”.

The event will be from 5:00-7:00pm CEST hosted at the Intercontinental Hotel Geneva in Switzerland on July 8th, 2024. Doors open at 4:30pm. Introductory remarks will be made by Mr. Edwards Kwakwa, WIPO, followed with a discussion moderated by Mr. Scott Frank, Chair of GLIPA on the success stories involved with establishing channels for dialogue with stakeholders and outreach needed to boost access to IP systems for all inventors and creators.

Speakers will include Ms. Sharon Israel (USPTO, USA), Mr. Konstantino Georgaras (CIPO, Canada), Mr. Carlos Maria Gallo (INPI, Argentina), Ms. Catherine Chammartin (IPI, Switzerland), Mr. Ben Llewellyn-Jones (UKIPO, UK), and Ms. Rena Lee (IPOS, Singapore).

Click here to register and see here for the official invite.

 

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WIPO SCP Statement: SEPs Sharing Session

The following document is an account of the statement made by Innovation Council at the World Intellectual Property Organization surrounding the EU standard essential patents (SEPs) regulation. We provide a summary of discussions that took place in WIPO and highlight common misconceptions about SEPs in the real economy before ending with some key takeaways.

Click here to read our statement.

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Letter: Brussels patent revamp imperils Europe’s mobile industry

InterDigital CEO and President, Liren Chen, discusses SEP regulation in this letter to the editor of the Financial Times. The message is clear: regulators should tread carefully. In his convincing argument, Chen discusses why preserving a balance between innovators and implementers is key and advises the use of market based solutions.

Click here to read the letter.

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Summary of TRIPS Council Special Session Presentation

This document provides a synopsis of the remarks made by Jennifer Brant, the executive director of Innovation Council, at the TRIPS Council Special Session in September of 2023. Jennifer discusses three of her most prominent works: Unprecedented (2021, co-authored with Prof. Mark Schultz), Making Biologics (2022), and Biomanufacturing Resilience (2023). She noted that the topic of the Special Session – extension of the 2022 TRIPS decision – is really about ensuring adequate health products supply and extending biomanufacturing capacity, for health security.

Jennifer spoke in her personal capacity.

Click here to read the synopsis of her remarks.

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Q&A: Cellular Technology Standardization and the EU SEP Regulation

The Standard Essential Patents Regulation (SEP Regulation) is moving through the EU legislative process, with the draft Regulation now under review by the Parliament. This background document presents the fundamentals of cellular technology innovation, standardization, and IP management. It also unpacks key elements of the draft Regulation. It is intended to serve as a resource for lawmakers and other stakeholders, to provide context for the EU legislative process.

Click here to read the background document.

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New EU Regulatory Regime for SEPs Will Upend Mobile Telecommunications Sector

This article from IP scholar Adam Mossoff presents the proposed EU SEP Regulation, which is due to be released on 26 April by DG GROW.

According to Mossoff, the leaked SEP Regulation would be counterproductive to a range of European goals, including ongoing innovation in cellular technology and a central role in standardization. He points out that available evidence suggests that, at best, the SEP Regulation is unnecessary – and that, at worst, it could stunt innovation and economic growth in the EU in the years to come.

A concern raised by the author is that the EUIPO has no previous patent law experience, yet the SEP Regulation plans to hand full control of important SEP issues to the EUIPO. The EUIPO would determine what patents are able to be classed as essential, thus, SEPs, along with the appropriate royalty rates for licensing such SEPs, in addition to mandating public disclosure of licensing agreements. Furthermore, it would also be able to prohibit licensing or litigation of SEPs that have
not been confirmed as essential, that have not been registered, or that have set a different royalty rate for the relevant SEPs.

The author argues that, if adopted, the SEP Regulation would destabilize the global telecommunications market as well as strongly favouring IP users over innovators.

Furthermore, Mossoff notes that this type of regulation could be advantageous for China, which could leverage it to continue discriminatory treatment against Western innovators in cellular technology. Overall, he expresses concern that the new EU SEP Regulation would negatively affect technological innovation and economic growth in the EU by destroying incentives for SEP owners to continue investing in R&D and participating in open standardization processes.

Click here to read the full article:

New EU Regulatory Regime for SEPs will Upend Mobile Telecommunications Sector, by Adam Mossoff, 12 April 2023, IPWatchdog.

For further reading, additional resources about the leaked SEP Regulation include:

The European Commission’s SEP licensing plans are terrible on every level, by Joff Wild, 30 March 2023, IAM.

Exclusive: EU patent body to oversee tech-standard patent royalties – EU draft rule, by Foo Yun Chee, 28 March 2023, Reuters.

European Commission departs from best practices in hasty preparation of standard-essential patent proposal that is fundamentally flawed and unbalanced, by Florian Mueller, 29 March 2023, FOSS Patents.

European Commission to propose radical new SEP/FRAND regime with major consequences for patent owners, by Adam Houldsworth, 29 March 2023, IAM.

European Commission set to give EUIPO responsibility for standard essential patents: big challenges lie ahead, by Trevor Little, 29 March 2023, World Trademark Review.

Proposed EU SEP regulation will also harm net licensees: implementers of standard-essential patents must be careful what they wish for, by Florian Mueller, 2 April 2023, FOSS Patents.

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