tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79230058109061590362024-03-27T23:54:48.718+00:00IP finance"Where money issues meet IP rights". This weblog looks at financial issues for intellectual property rights: securitisation and collateral, IP valuation for acquisition and balance sheet purposes, tax and R&D breaks, film and product finance, calculating quantum of damages--anything that happens where IP meets money.Anne Fairpohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02579190868405783459noreply@blogger.comBlogger1838125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-55185162384912764582024-03-06T23:46:00.003+00:002024-03-06T23:46:47.491+00:00US Department of Treasury Sanctions Commercial Spyware Entities<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The U.S. Department of Treasury has sanctioned individuals
and entities responsible for commercial spyware. The Press Release states:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">WASHINGTON — Today, the Department of the Treasury’s Office
of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated two individuals and five entities
associated with the Intellexa Consortium for their role in developing,
operating, and distributing commercial spyware technology used to target
Americans, including U.S. government officials, journalists, and policy
experts. The proliferation of commercial spyware poses distinct and growing
security risks to the United States and has been misused by foreign actors to enable
human rights abuses and the targeting of dissidents around the world for
repression and reprisal. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“Today’s actions represent a tangible step forward in
discouraging the misuse of commercial surveillance tools, which increasingly
present a security risk to the United States and our citizens,” said Under
Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E.
Nelson. “The United States remains focused on establishing clear guardrails for
the responsible development and use of these technologies while also ensuring
the protection of human rights and civil liberties of individuals around the
world.” . . . <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">PREDATOR SPYWARE SOLD TO CUSTOMERS AROUND THE GLOBE<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Since its founding in 2019, the Intellexa Consortium has
acted as a marketing label for a variety of offensive cyber companies that
offer commercial spyware and surveillance tools to enable targeted and mass
surveillance campaigns. These tools are packaged as a suite of tools under the
brand-name “Predator” spyware, which can infiltrate a range of electronic
devices through zero-click attacks that require no user interaction for the
spyware to infect the device. Once a device is infected by the Predator spyware,
the spyware can be leveraged for a variety of information stealing and
surveillance capabilities—this includes the unauthorized extraction of data,
geolocation tracking, and access to a variety of applications and personal
information on the compromised device. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The Intellexa Consortium, which has a global customer base,
has enabled the proliferation of commercial spyware and surveillance
technologies around the world, including to authoritarian regimes. Furthermore,
the Predator spyware has been deployed by foreign actors in an effort to
covertly surveil U.S. government officials, journalists, and policy experts. In
the event of a successful Predator infection, the spyware’s operators can
access and retrieve sensitive information including contacts, call logs, and
messaging information, microphone recordings, and media from the
device. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE TO PROMOTE ROBUST COMMERCIAL
SPYWARE STANDARDS TO PROTECT NATIONAL SECURITY AND UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">As described in E.O. 14093 and the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/03/27/fact-sheet-president-biden-signs-executive-order-to-prohibit-u-s-government-use-of-commercial-spyware-that-poses-risks-to-national-security/">White
House Fact Sheet</a>, commercial spyware has proliferated in recent years with
few controls and a high risk of abuse. A growing number of foreign
governments around the world, moreover, have deployed this technology to
facilitate repression and enable human rights abuses, including to intimidate
political opponents and curb dissent, limit freedom of expression, and monitor
and target activists and journalists. Misuse of these powerful surveillance
tools has not been limited to authoritarian regimes. Democracies also have confronted
revelations that actors within their systems have misused commercial spyware to
target their citizens without proper legal authorization, safeguards, and
oversight. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">This Presidential Directive has identified that the United
States has a fundamental national security and foreign policy interest in
countering and preventing the proliferation of commercial spyware that has been
or risks being misused, in light of the core interests of the United States in
protecting U.S. government personnel and U.S. citizens around the world;
upholding and advancing democracy; promoting respect for human rights; and
defending activists, dissidents, and journalists against threats to their
freedom and dignity. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">To advance these interests and promote responsible use of
commercial spyware, the United States has established robust protections and
procedures to ensure that any U.S. government use of commercial spyware helps
safeguard its information systems and intelligence and law enforcement
activities against significant counterintelligence or security risks; aligns
with its core interests in promoting democracy and democratic values around the
world; and ensures that the U.S. government does not contribute, directly or
indirectly, to the proliferation of commercial spyware that has been misused by
foreign governments or facilitate such misuse.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">KEY ENABLERS OF THE INTELLEXA CONSORTIUM<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>Tal Jonathan Dilian (Dilian)</b> is the founder of
the Intellexa Consortium, and is the architect behind its spyware tools. The
consortium is a complex international web of decentralized companies controlled
either fully or partially by Dilian, including through Sara Aleksandra Fayssal
Hamou. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>Sara Aleksandra Fayssal Hamou (Hamou)</b>, is a corporate
off-shoring specialist who has provided managerial services to the Intellexa
Consortium, including renting office space in Greece on behalf of <b>Intellexa
S.A.</b> Hamou holds a leadership role at <b>Intellexa S.A.</b>,<b> Intellexa
Limited</b>, and<b> Thalestris Limited</b>. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>Intellexa S.A.</b> is a Greece-based software
development company within the Intellexa Consortium and has exported its
surveillance tools to authoritarian regimes. Intellexa S.A. was added to
the <a href="https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/documents/about-bis/newsroom/press-releases/3297-2023-07-18-bis-press-package-spyware-document/file">Department
of Commerce Entity List</a> on July 18, 2023, for trafficking in cyber
exploits used to gain access to information systems, threatening the privacy
and security of individuals and organizations worldwide<b>. </b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>Intellexa Limited</b> is an Ireland-based company
within the Intellexa Consortium and acts as a technology reseller and holds
assets on behalf of the consortium. Intellexa Limited was added to the <a href="https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/documents/about-bis/newsroom/press-releases/3297-2023-07-18-bis-press-package-spyware-document/file">Department
of Commerce Entity List</a> on July 18, 2023, for trafficking in
cyber exploits used to gain access to information systems, threatening the
privacy and security of individuals and organizations worldwide<b>. </b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>Cytrox AD</b> is a North Macedonia-based company
within the Intellexa Consortium and acts as a developer of the consortium’s
Predator spyware. Cytrox AD was added to the <a href="https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/documents/about-bis/newsroom/press-releases/3297-2023-07-18-bis-press-package-spyware-document/file">Department
of Commerce Entity List</a><b> on July 18, 2023, </b>for trafficking
in cyber exploits used to gain access to information systems, threatening the
privacy and security of individuals and organizations worldwide<b>. </b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>Cytrox Holdings Zartkoruen Mukodo Reszvenytarsasag (Cytrox
Holdings ZRT</b>) is a Hungary-based entity within the Intellexa Consortium.
Cytrox Holdings ZRT previously developed the Predator spyware for the group
before production moved to Cytrox AD in North Macedonia. Cytrox Holdings ZRT
was added to the <a href="https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/documents/about-bis/newsroom/press-releases/3297-2023-07-18-bis-press-package-spyware-document/file">Department
of Commerce Entity List</a> on July 18, 2023, for trafficking in cyber
exploits used to gain access to information systems, threatening the privacy
and security of individuals and organizations worldwide<b>. </b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>Thalestris Limited</b> is an Ireland-based entity
within the Intellexa Consortium that holds distribution rights to the Predator
spyware and acts as a financial holding company for the Consortium.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Dilian, Hamou, Intellexa S.A., Intellexa Limited, Cytrox AD,
Cytrox Holdings ZRT, and Thalestris Limited are being designated pursuant to
Executive Order (E.O.) 13694, as amended by E.O. 13757, for being responsible
for or complicit in, or having engaged in, directly or indirectly,
cyber-enabled activities originating from, or directed by persons located, in
whole or in substantial part, outside the United States that are reasonably
likely to result in, or have materially contributed to, a significant threat to
the national security, foreign policy, or economic health or financial
stability of the United States and that have the purpose or effect of causing a
significant misappropriation of funds or economic resources, trade secrets,
personal identifiers, or financial information for commercial or competitive
advantage or private financial gain.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">SANCTIONS IMPLICATIONS<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">As a result of today’s action, all property and interests in
property of the designated persons described above that are in the United
States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be
reported to OFAC. In addition, any entities that are owned, directly or
indirectly, individually or in the aggregate, 50 percent or more by one or more
blocked persons are also blocked. Unless authorized by a general or specific
license issued by OFAC, or exempt, OFAC’s regulations generally prohibit all
transactions by U.S. persons or within (or transiting) the United States that
involve any property or interests in property of designated or otherwise
blocked persons. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">In addition, financial institutions and other persons that
engage in certain transactions or activities with the sanctioned entities and
individuals may expose themselves to sanctions or be subject to an enforcement
action. Prohibitions include the making of any contribution or provision of
funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any designated person,
or the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services
from any such person. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The power and integrity of OFAC sanctions derive not only
from OFAC’s ability to designate and add persons to the Specially Designated
Nationals (SDN) List, but also from its willingness to remove persons from the
SDN List consistent with the law. The ultimate goal of sanctions is not to
punish, but to bring about a positive change in behavior. For information
concerning the process for seeking removal from an OFAC list, including the SDN
List, please refer to <a href="https://ofac.treasury.gov/faqs/897">OFAC’s
Frequently Asked Question 897 here</a>. For detailed information on <a href="https://ofac.treasury.gov/specially-designated-nationals-list-sdn-list/filing-a-petition-for-removal-from-an-ofac-list">the
process to submit a request for removal from an OFAC sanctions list, please
click here</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://ofac.treasury.gov/recent-actions/20240305">Click
here for more information on the individuals and entities designated today</a>.</span><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-31140458624564727142024-03-06T23:21:00.001+00:002024-03-06T23:23:32.933+00:00US DOJ Announces Indictment of Former Google Employee and PRC National for AI Trade Secret Theft<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">US Department of Justice announced the indictment of former Google
employee for stealing AI related trade secrets.
The <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-national-residing-california-arrested-theft-artificial-intelligence-related-trade">press release</a> states:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">A federal grand jury indicted Linwei Ding, aka Leon Ding,
charging him with four counts of theft of trade secrets in connection with an
alleged plan to steal from Google LLC (Google) proprietary information related
to artificial intelligence (AI) technology. . . . <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">According to the indictment, returned on March 5 and unsealed
earlier today, Ding, 38, a national of the People’s Republic of China and
resident of Newark, California, transferred sensitive Google trade secrets and
other confidential information from Google’s network to his personal account
while secretly affiliating himself with PRC-based companies in the AI industry.
Ding was arrested earlier this morning in Newark.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“The Justice Department will not tolerate the theft
of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies that could put our
national security at risk,” said Attorney General Garland. “In this case, we
allege the defendant stole artificial
intelligence-related trade secrets from Google while secretly
working for two companies based in China. We will fiercely protect sensitive
technologies developed in America from falling into the hands of those who
should not have them.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">. . . “In the one year since its inception, the Disruptive
Technology Strike Force has been relentless in protecting advanced U.S.
technologies, like artificial intelligence, from malign actors,” said Assistant
Secretary Matthew S. Axelrod of the Commerce Department’s Office for Export
Enforcement. “Let today’s announcement serve as further warning – those who
would steal sensitive U.S. technology risk finding themselves on the wrong end
of a criminal indictment.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">According to court documents, the technology Ding allegedly
stole involves the building blocks of Google’s advanced supercomputing data
centers, which are designed to support machine learning workloads used to train
and host large AI models. According to the indictment, large AI models are AI
applications capable of understanding nuanced language and generating
intelligent responses to prompts, tasks, or queries. The indictment describes
how Google developed both proprietary hardware and software to facilitate the
machine learning process powered by its supercomputing data centers. With
respect to hardware, Google uses advanced computer chips with the extraordinary
processing power required to facilitate machine learning and run AI
applications. With respect to software, Google deploys several layers of
software, referred to in the indictment as the “software platform,” to
orchestrate machine learning workloads efficiently. For example, one component
of the software platform is the Cluster Management System (CMS), which
functions as the “brain” of Google’s supercomputing data centers. The CMS
organizes, prioritizes, and assigns tasks to the hardware infrastructure,
allowing the advanced chips to function efficiently when executing machine
learning workloads or hosting AI applications.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">According to the indictment, Google hired Ding as a software
engineer in 2019. Ding’s responsibilities included developing the software
deployed in Google’s supercomputing data centers. In connection with his
employment, Ding was granted access to Goggle’s confidential information
related to the hardware infrastructure, the software platform, and the AI
models and applications they supported. The indictment alleges that on May 21,
2022, Ding began secretly uploading trade secrets that were stored in Google’s
network by copying the information into a personal Google Cloud account.
According to the indictment, Ding continued periodic uploads until May 2, 2023,
by which time Ding allegedly uploaded more than 500 unique files containing
confidential information.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">In addition, the indictment alleges that Ding secretly
affiliated himself with two PRC-based technology companies. According to the
indictment, on or about June 13, 2022, Ding received several emails from the
CEO of an early-stage technology company based in the PRC indicating Ding had
been offered the position of Chief Technology Officer for the company. Ding
allegedly traveled to the PRC on Oct. 29, 2022, and remained there until March
25, 2023, during which time he participated in investor meetings to raise
capital for the new company. The indictment alleges potential investors were
told Ding was the new company’s Chief Technology Officer and that Ding owned
20% of the company’s stock.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">According to the indictment, unbeknownst to Google, by no
later than May 30, 2023, Ding had founded his own technology company in the AI
and machine learning industry and was acting as the company’s CEO. Ding’s
company touted the development of a software platform designed to accelerate
machine learning workloads, including training large AI models. As alleged in
the indictment, Ding applied to a PRC-based startup incubation program and
traveled to Beijing, to present his company at an investor conference on Nov.
24, 2023. As set forth in the indictment, a document related to Ding’s startup
company stated, “we have experience with Google's ten-thousand-card
computational power platform; we just need to replicate and upgrade it - and
then further develop a computational power platform suited to China's national
conditions.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The indictment alleges Ding’s conduct violated his employment
agreement as well as a separate code of conduct that Ding signed when he became
a Google employee. Further, the indictment describes measures that Ding
allegedly took to conceal his theft of the trade secrets. For example, he
allegedly copied data from Google source files into the Apple Notes application
on his Google-issued MacBook laptop. By then converting the Apple Notes into
PDF files and uploading them from the Google network into as separate account,
Ding allegedly evaded detection by Google’s data loss prevention systems.
Likewise, the indictment describes how in December 2023 Ding allegedly
permitted another Google employee to use his Google-issued access badge to scan
into the entrance of a Google building – making it appear he was working from
his U.S. Google office when, in fact, he was in the PRC.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Ding is charged with four counts of theft of trade secrets.
If convicted, Ding faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and up to a
$250,000 fine for each count. A federal district court judge will determine any
sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory
factors.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The FBI and Commerce Department are investigating the case.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of
California and Justice Department National Security Division’s
Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Today’s action was coordinated through the Justice and
Commerce Departments’ Disruptive Technology Strike Force. The Disruptive
Technology Strike Force is an interagency law enforcement strike force co-led
by the Departments of Justice and Commerce designed to target illicit actors,
protect supply chains, and prevent critical technology from being acquired by
authoritarian regimes and hostile nation-states.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: verdana;">An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are
presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of
law.</span></i><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-11532341932319893952024-02-29T23:09:00.003+00:002024-02-29T23:09:43.336+00:00US PTO Releases Guidelines on AI Assisted Inventions<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The United States Patent Office has issued Guidelines on AI Assisted
Inventions. The press release concerning
the guidelines provides:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">To incentivize, protect, and encourage investment in
innovations made possible through the use of artificial intelligence (AI), and
to provide the clarity to the public and United States Patent and Trademark
Office (USPTO) employees on the patentability of AI-assisted inventions, the
USPTO has published guidance in the <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/public-inspection/2024-02623/guidance-inventorship-guidance-on-ai-assisted-inventions?utm_campaign=subscriptioncenter&utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_name=&utm_source=govdelivery&utm_term=" target="_blank"><b>Federal Register</b></a>. This guidance delivers on the
USPTO’s obligations under the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/10/30/executive-order-on-the-safe-secure-and-trustworthy-development-and-use-of-artificial-intelligence/?utm_campaign=subscriptioncenter&utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_name=&utm_source=govdelivery&utm_term=" target="_blank"><b>Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy
Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence</b></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“The patent system was developed to incentivize and protect
human ingenuity and the investments needed to translate that ingenuity into
marketable products and solutions,” said Kathi Vidal, Under Secretary of
Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO. “The patent
system also incentivizes the sharing of ideas and solutions so that others may
build on them. The guidance strikes a balance between awarding patent
protection to promote human ingenuity and investment for AI-assisted inventions
while not unnecessarily locking up innovation for future developments. The
guidance does that by embracing the use of AI in innovation and focusing on the
human contribution.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The guidance, which goes into effect February 13, makes clear
that AI-assisted inventions are not categorically unpatentable. The guidance
provides instructions to examiners and stakeholders on how to determine <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">whether the human contribution to an
innovation is significant enough to qualify for a patent when AI also
contributed.</span> It builds on the existing inventorship framework by
providing instructions to examiners and applicants on determining the correct
inventor(s) to be named in a patent or patent application for inventions
created by humans with the assistance of one or more AI systems. It states that
patent protection may be sought for inventions in which a human provided a
significant contribution to the invention.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Additionally, in order to further assist our examiners and
applicants in their understanding of this guidance, examples of hypothetical
situations of how the guidance would apply are available on our <a href="https://www.uspto.gov/initiatives/artificial-intelligence/artificial-intelligence-resources?utm_campaign=subscriptioncenter&utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_name=&utm_source=govdelivery&utm_term=" target="_blank"><b>AI-related resources webpage</b></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">To learn more about what the guidance is and is not, and to
get your questions answered and provide feedback, we invite you to attend our
upcoming <a href="https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/events/inventorship-guidance-ai-assisted-inventions-webinar?utm_campaign=subscriptioncenter&utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_name=&utm_source=govdelivery&utm_term=" target="_blank"><b>public webinar</b></a> on March 5 from 1-2 p.m. ET. We
also invite you to read the Director’s Blog on <a href="https://www.uspto.gov/blog/director/entry/ai-and-inventorship-guidance-incentivizing?utm_campaign=subscriptioncenter&utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_name=&utm_source=govdelivery&utm_term=" target="_blank"><b>AI and inventorship guidance: Incentivizing human ingenuity
and investment in AI-assisted inventions</b></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The full text of the inventorship guidance for AI-assisted
inventions and the corresponding examples are available on our <a href="https://www.uspto.gov/initiatives/artificial-intelligence/artificial-intelligence-resources?utm_campaign=subscriptioncenter&utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_name=&utm_source=govdelivery&utm_term=" target="_blank"><b>AI-related resources webpage</b></a>. The USPTO will accept
public comments on the inventorship guidance and the examples until May 13,
2024. Please see the Federal Register Notice for instructions on submitting
comments.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The Guidelines provide a nonexhaustive list of principles to
use when analyzing ai-assisted inventorship: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">1. A natural person's use of an AI system in creating an
AI-assisted invention does not negate the person's contributions as an
inventor.<sup>[<a href="#footnote-53-p10048">53</a>] </sup>The natural person
can be listed as the inventor or joint inventor if the natural person
contributes significantly to the AI-assisted invention. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">2. Merely recognizing a problem or having a general goal or
research plan to pursue does not rise to the level of conception.<sup>[<a href="#footnote-54-p10048">54</a>] </sup>A natural person who only presents a
problem to an AI system may not be a proper inventor or joint inventor of an
invention identified from the output of the AI system. However, a significant
contribution could be shown by the way the person constructs the prompt in view
of a specific problem to elicit a particular solution from the AI system. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">3. Reducing an invention to practice alone is not a
significant contribution that rises to the level of inventorship.<sup>[<a href="#footnote-55-p10048">55</a>] </sup>Therefore, a natural person who merely
recognizes and appreciates the output of an AI system as an invention,
particularly when the properties and utility of the output are apparent to
those of ordinary skill, is not necessarily an inventor.<sup>[<a href="#footnote-56-p10048">56</a>] </sup>However, a person who takes the output
of an AI system and makes a significant contribution to the output to create an
invention may be a proper inventor. Alternatively, in certain situations, a
person who conducts a successful experiment using the AI system's output could
demonstrate that the person provided a significant contribution to the
invention even if that person is unable to establish conception until the
invention has been reduced to practice.<sup>[<a href="#footnote-57-p10049">57</a>]
</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">4. A natural person who develops an essential building block
from which the claimed invention is derived may be considered to have provided
a significant contribution to the conception of the claimed invention even
though the person was not present for or a participant in each activity that
led to the conception of the claimed invention.<sup>[<a href="#footnote-58-p10049">58</a>] </sup>In some situations, the natural
person(s) who designs, builds, or trains an AI system in view of a specific
problem to elicit a particular solution could be an inventor, where the
designing, building, or training of the AI system is a significant contribution
to the invention created with the AI system. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">5. Maintaining “intellectual domination” over an AI system
does not, on its own, make a person an inventor of any inventions created
through the use of the AI system.<sup>[<a href="#footnote-59-p10049">59</a>] </sup>Therefore,
a person simply owning or overseeing an AI system that is used in the creation
of an invention, without providing a significant contribution to the conception
of the invention, does not make that person an inventor.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Additionally, the guidelines, related to the duty of candor
and reasonable inquiry, state: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">For example, patent practitioners who are preparing and
prosecuting an application should inquire about the proper inventorship.<sup>[<a href="#footnote-74-p10050">74</a>] </sup>Given the ubiquitous nature of AI,
this inventorship inquiry could include questions about whether and how AI is
being used in the invention creation process. In making inventorship
determinations, it is appropriate to assess whether the contributions made by
natural persons rise to the level of inventorship as discussed in section IV
above.</span><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-4030167943667662682024-02-28T23:32:00.002+00:002024-02-28T23:32:35.531+00:00National Academy of Inventors 2023 World-Wide University U.S. Utility Patent Rankings<p><span style="font-family: arial;">The National Academy of Inventors has released its 2023
university rankings for U.S. granted utility patents. The top 10 include: “1) The Regents of the University
of California -- 546; 2) Massachusetts Institute of Technology – 365; 3) The University
of Texas System –235; 4) King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals –216; 5) Stanford
University –199; 6) Purdue University – 198; 7) Harvard University – 186; 8) Zhejiang
University –185; 9) Arizona State University –170; 10) California Institute of Technology
–156. Zhejiang University (2022, 16) passed Tsinghua University (2022, 5) as
the highest ranked university based in China for 2023.
The list of the top 100 is available, here: <a href="https://academyofinventors.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2023-Top-100-Worldwide.pdf">2023-Top-100-Worldwide.pdf
(academyofinventors.org)</a>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-60320053846774223342024-02-24T04:18:00.001+00:002024-02-24T04:20:27.280+00:00Discovering or Setting Aggregate Royalties and FRAND Rates for SEP Portfolios?The European Parliament (EP) is due to vote on the European Commission’s proposed legislation for Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) licensing of Standard-Essential Patents (SEPs) on 27th or 28th February 2024. Stated objectives include increasing transparency and predictability while reducing transaction costs. Measures include (1) the setting up of a mandatory register for SEPs with essentiality checks of selected and representative random samples of SEPs, (2) a process for determining a non-binding aggregate royalty rate, and (3) a mandatory pre-litigation conciliation procedure for FRAND royalty determination, combined with (4) voluntary guidance on SEP licensing. A new competence centre within the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) will be responsible for these tasks. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwLeY1yrm4FMEv48LqJG1jVCVtvD43Jn1zW-Y2UEg3o_0cW0pI7xJcbCvTqkQcm5RFvbF5BIW7RynF7nSZx34BK_6QiMmp9CjQ1NdwfIdiUbMgXrVCl612waiWjLPCJ8xb6vY2eE7OBiRqmA_L_qQQ3-bEdgnFX-pTeaD9-7ldNvy__7gHkbD7P0Wk8AE/s252/European%20Parliament.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="252" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwLeY1yrm4FMEv48LqJG1jVCVtvD43Jn1zW-Y2UEg3o_0cW0pI7xJcbCvTqkQcm5RFvbF5BIW7RynF7nSZx34BK_6QiMmp9CjQ1NdwfIdiUbMgXrVCl612waiWjLPCJ8xb6vY2eE7OBiRqmA_L_qQQ3-bEdgnFX-pTeaD9-7ldNvy__7gHkbD7P0Wk8AE/w320-h254/European%20Parliament.png" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>The US and Europe are heading in different directions on how to determine FRAND licensing charges for SEPs. While the US has shunned rate-setting regulation by withdrawing guidance from government agencies including the USPTO, NIST and DoJ and is diminishing proposed law-making, the Commission's interventionist approach prescribes a valuation methodology which a Chinese court has recently used to drastically and defectively undercut established rates.<br /><br />Whether the EP broadly accepts the Commission's proposed legislation as is, makes significant amendments, rejects some or all of it outright with demands for a radical rethink and do over, the need for sound institutional governance, fit-for purpose methods and quality standards in patent checking and for determining aggregate and individual royalties looms large. <br /><br />My paper about much of the above has just been published by George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School’s Journal of Law & Economics. In this, I compare US and European approaches to determining FRAND rates for SEPs when parties are in dispute. I also critically examine how aggregate royalties might be derived, together with the mechanics of “top-down approach” royalty rate setting. The paper with citation "Keith Mallinson, <i>Discovering or Setting Aggregate Royalties and FRAND Rates for SEP Portfolios</i>, 19 J.L. Econ. & Pol’y 1 (2024)" can be downloaded from SSRN, <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4667656" target="_blank"><b>here</b></a>.</div><div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div></div>Keith Mallinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06641698749106397850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-14411424621142552002024-02-20T21:16:00.000+00:002024-02-20T21:16:03.867+00:00U.S. FTC Supports March-in Rights Guidelines<p><span style="font-family: arial;">The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has released a comment in
support of the NIST’s guidelines concerning the exercise of march-in rights
under the Bayh-Dole Act. The Press
Release states:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Today the Federal Trade Commission <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/2024.02.06March-InRightsComment.pdf">issued
a comment</a> in response to the National Institute of Standards and
Technology’s (NIST) request for information on its Draft Interagency Guidance
Framework for Considering the Exercise of March-In Rights under the Bayh-Dole
Act.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Under the Bayh-Dole Act, the federal government has the right
to “march in” on patents on inventions created using taxpayer funds—to require
the patent holder to license the federally funded patent to other applicants.
The draft interagency framework provides guidance outlining when the government
should exercise its march-in rights, which have never before been utilized. The
draft framework makes clear that high price is an appropriate basis for
exercising march-in rights. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In the comment, the FTC applauds NIST, which is part of the
U.S. Department of Commerce, and the Interagency Working Group for Bayh-Dole,
which includes the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, for their
efforts to reactivate march-in rights as an important check on companies
charging Americans inflated prices for drugs developed with taxpayer-funded
research. In the comment, the FTC expressed support for an expansive and
flexible approach to march-in rights, including providing that agencies can march
in on the basis of high prices.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The FTC’s comment draws on its experience in promoting
competition and combatting anticompetitive practices in the pharmaceuticals
industry. Lack of competition in pharmaceutical markets can lead to inflated
pricing, rendering some lifesaving treatments out of reach for many Americans.
Nearly three in 10 Americans report rationing or skipping their medications due
to high costs. Contrary to industry claims that high drug prices are necessary
to fund research and development (R&D), drug prices often depend more on
whether the drug faces competition than the drug’s R&D costs. At the same
time, pharmaceutical firms enjoy hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer
investment in R&D. March-in rights are an essential check to ensure that
taxpayer-funded inventions are affordable and accessible to the public.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The FTC’s comment further explains that although march-in
rights can be a valuable tool to address potential harms in the pharmaceutical
industry, broader challenges requiring government-wide solutions remain. For
example, dense “patent thickets” result from pharmaceutical companies using
increasingly large patent portfolios to protect a single treatment. This may
weaken the utility of march-in rights to provide affordable public access to
drugs because some pharmaceuticals may be protected by patent thickets
that include privately funded blocking patents in addition to government-funded
patents subject to march-in rights. In its comment, the FTC urges
agencies to work collaboratively to also address such patent thickets.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Commission voted 3-0 to approve filing of the comment.</span><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-89551027027406958242024-01-31T21:56:00.003+00:002024-01-31T21:56:38.820+00:00U.S. International Trade Commission Covid-19 Diagnostics and Treatment Development and Access Report<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The U.S. International Trade Commission released a corrected
version of its COVID-19 Diagnostics and Therapeutics: Supply, Demand and TRIPS
Flexibilities Report in December of 2023.
Chapter 7 is a summary of views of interested parties. I found that interesting, particularly the
section on jobs related to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. The following is an excerpt from the
Executive Summary:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>The TRIPS Agreement sets minimum standards for the
protection and enforcement of IP rights.</b> It also includes flexibilities.
Persons providing input to the Commission disagreed about the extent to which
the 2022 Ministerial Decision expands flexibilities and whether the decision
should be extended to COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>Determining a definitive scope of what products are
covered by the terms “diagnostics” and “therapeutics” as they pertain to
COVID-19 and what constitutes relevant COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics
covered by patents is complicated and subject to interpretation.</b> Based on
definitions in the medical field of “diagnostics” and “therapeutics,” a
COVID-19 diagnostic is a good used to diagnose or identify how patients respond
to treatments for COVID-19, and a COVID-19 therapeutic is a good used to treat
COVID-19. The universe of COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics covered by
patents or in development that fall within those definitions is broad and
varied. There are various parameters that could be applied, individually or in
combination, to identify relevant COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics,
including whether the product is covered by patent, whether the product is
directed to COVID-19 (virus-directed), and whether the product has received
regulatory approval or authorization; application of each comes with its own
challenges. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>The development and commercialization of COVID-19
diagnostics and therapeutics occurred on an extremely compressed timeline.</b>
Manufacturing of diagnostics and therapeutics involves multiple stages, each of
which requires careful attention to detail and strict quality control measures.
The two fields of diagnostics and therapeutics are composed of different
producers, inputs, know-how, and so on. Generally, COVID-19 diagnostics can be
brought to market faster than COVID-19 therapeutics, and the knowledge and
manufacturing base globally for small-molecule drugs is larger than for
biologics. Research and development of virus-directed COVID-19 diagnostics and
therapeutics primarily occurred in HICs, but manufacturing of diagnostics and
therapeutics occurred in countries of all income levels except for LICs. As of
summer 2023, China (UMIC) reportedly had the highest number of manufacturers of
COVID-19 diagnostics (247), and India (LMIC) had the largest number of reported
therapeutics manufacturers (56). It is difficult, however, to ascertain how
much COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics production came online or is still
ongoing. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>A variety of advantages and challenges are associated with
the use of voluntary licenses to provide access to IP associated with COVID-19
therapeutics and compulsory licenses to access COVID-19 therapeutics and other
patented pharmaceutical products.</b> Voluntary licenses and compulsory
licenses generally were not used to access IP associated with COVID-19
diagnostics. Voluntary licenses have been an important mechanism that was used
to offer COVID-19 therapeutics for sale at reduced prices in LICs, LMICs, and
some UMICs; however, many UMICs have been excluded from coverage under
voluntary licenses. Voluntary licenses also provided a mechanism for technology
transfer and knowledge sharing to support the manufacture and regulatory
approval of less expensive licensed products. Compulsory licenses have been
used by a small number of countries to access IP associated with certain
COVID-19 therapeutics. The primary, commonly cited benefits for countries
utilizing compulsory licenses are reduced costs and improved access. Another
primary benefit of compulsory licenses reportedly is that they provide leverage
to negotiate voluntary licenses. One of the main disadvantages is that they do
not provide a basis for sharing knowledge. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>The availability of supplies to meet global demand for
COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics has been a moving target throughout the
pandemic.</b> Estimates or calculations of demand for these goods differ
depending upon whether the metric is market demand or need. When infection
rates rose sharply in early 2021, before manufacturers had scaled up production
and regulators had granted approvals, access was limited and available only to
a few HICs. During 2021, more products became available for procurement. By
early 2022, infection rates and deaths from COVID-19 steadily declined as
vaccination rates grew and natural immunity strengthened. By early May 2023,
the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that COVID-19 would no longer be
classified as a public health emergency of international concern. Today, market
demand has waned in some countries, with several manufacturers no longer
pursuing regulatory approval and stopping production altogether. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>The disparity among countries of different income groups
is wide in terms of access and availability to COVID-19 diagnostics and
therapeutics.</b> About 80 percent of government procurements were by HICs, 14
percent by UMICs, and 5 percent by LMICs. No government purchases were made by
LICs, although products were made available to them through multilateral
organizations. The wide disparity among countries in their ability to access
COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics is the result of multiple factors,
including access to IP, prices and affordability, regulatory approvals,
healthcare infrastructure, and the healthcare priorities of governments. The
importance of each of these and other factors impacting availability and demand
varies greatly among countries, although high prices and the lack of price transparency
appear detrimental to many countries seeking access. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>Academic literature on the effects of patent protection,
compulsory licenses, and the MPP is limited and would benefit from additional
research.</b> From the available evidence, patent protection is generally found
to be more beneficial to innovation in the health sector for developed
countries and less so for developing countries. Patent protection is often
found to result in higher prices for medicines, which decrease access, but
patent protection can also have some counteracting effects, such as increases
in international trade flows of pharmaceuticals and faster drug launches in
markets, that help improve access. Researchers have found that compulsory
licenses and the MPP are associated with increased generics and lower prices,
and increased access to pharmaceuticals. Researchers have not studied the
relationship between compulsory licenses and the MPP and access to COVID-19
diagnostics and therapeutics.</span><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-61522015028396871122024-01-31T21:20:00.003+00:002024-01-31T21:20:44.476+00:00U.S. FTC: Unpacking Technology Companies Acquisition of AI-related Technologies<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is gathering information from major
technology companies regarding their acquisition of technology from other
companies concerning artificial intelligence.
The FTC <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/01/ftc-launches-inquiry-generative-ai-investments-partnerships">press release</a> states:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The Federal Trade Commission announced today that it issued
orders to five companies requiring them to provide information regarding recent
investments and partnerships involving generative AI companies and major cloud
service providers.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The agency’s 6(b) inquiry will scrutinize corporate
partnerships and investments with AI providers to build a better internal
understanding of these relationships and their impact on the competitive
landscape. The compulsory orders were sent to Alphabet, Inc., Amazon.com,
Inc., Anthropic PBC, Microsoft Corp., and OpenAI, Inc.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“History shows that new technologies can create new markets
and healthy competition. As companies race to develop and monetize AI, we must
guard against tactics that foreclose this opportunity, “said FTC Chair Lina M.
Khan. “Our study will shed light on whether investments and partnerships
pursued by dominant companies risk distorting innovation and undermining fair
competition."<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The FTC issued its <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/P246201_AI_Investments_6%28b%29_Order_and_Resolution.pdf">orders</a> under
Section 6(b) of the FTC Act, which authorizes the Commission to conduct studies
that allow enforcers to gain a deeper understanding of market trends and
business practices. Findings stemming from such orders can help inform future
Commission actions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Companies are deploying a range of strategies in developing
and using AI, including pursuing partnerships and direct investments with AI
developers to get access to key technologies and inputs needed for AI
development. The orders issued today were sent to companies involved in three
separate multi-billion-dollar investments: <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/now-leaving?external_url=https%3A%2F%2Fblogs.microsoft.com%2Fblog%2F2023%2F01%2F23%2Fmicrosoftandopenaiextendpartnership%2F&back_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ftc.gov%2Fnews-events%2Fnews%2Fpress-releases%2F2024%2F01%2Fftc-launches-inquiry-generative-ai-investments-partnerships">Microsoft
and OpenAI</a>, <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/now-leaving?external_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpress.aboutamazon.com%2F2023%2F9%2Famazon-and-anthropic-announce-strategic-collaboration-to-advance-generative-ai&back_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ftc.gov%2Fnews-events%2Fnews%2Fpress-releases%2F2024%2F01%2Fftc-launches-inquiry-generative-ai-investments-partnerships">Amazon
and Anthropic</a>, and <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/now-leaving?external_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googlecloudpresscorner.com%2F2023-11-08-Google-Announces-Expansion-of-AI-Partnership-with-Anthropic&back_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ftc.gov%2Fnews-events%2Fnews%2Fpress-releases%2F2024%2F01%2Fftc-launches-inquiry-generative-ai-investments-partnerships">Google
and Anthropic</a>. The FTC’s inquiry will help the agency deepen enforcers
understanding of the investments and partnerships formed between generative AI
developers and cloud service providers.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The FTC is seeking information specifically related to:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Information regarding a specific investment or
partnership, including agreements and the strategic rationale of an
investment/partnership.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The practical implications of a specific partnership
or investment, including decisions around new product releases, governance
or oversight rights, and the topic of regular meetings.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Analysis of the transactions’ competitive impact,
including information related to market share, competition, competitors,
markets, potential for sales growth, or expansion into product or
geographic markets.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Competition for AI inputs and resources, including
the competitive dynamics regarding key products and services needed for
generative AI. <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Information provided to any other government entity,
including foreign government entities, in connection with any
investigation, request for information, or other inquiry related to these
topics.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The companies will have 45 days from the date they receive
the order to respond.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The Commission voted 3-0 to issue the Section 6(b) orders and
conduct the study of AI investments and partnerships.</span><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-72029420878028546062024-01-22T20:58:00.001+00:002024-01-22T20:58:39.786+00:00U.S. GAO Report on Tracking U.S. Government Funding to Foreign Entities<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report
on January 11, 2024, which studies federal funding provided to foreign entities
for research and development. The Report
states:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">According to the National Science Foundation, federal
agencies obligated about $1.4 billion for R&D with foreign entities in
fiscal year 2020 (the most recent data available). However, some foreign
entities may try to exploit U.S. openness in sharing R&D for nefarious
purposes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The Research and Development, Competition, and Innovation Act
includes a provision for GAO to review research funding provided to foreign
entities of concern. The act's definition of such entities includes foreign
terrorist organizations and foreign entities subject to the control, ownership,
and jurisdiction of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">This report examines challenges in identifying R&D funds
awarded to foreign entities of concern and requirements for awarding and
monitoring such funding.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .5in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The Report also states, in part: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">GAO found that determining whether federal research and
development (R&D) funds were provided to a foreign entity of concern is
challenging. Such entities include foreign terrorist organizations and
specially designated nationals, among others. Awarding agencies are generally
prohibited from doing business with foreign terrorist organizations and
specially designated nationals.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">GAO found that government-wide databases which report on some
of these entities lack common identifying information such as a unique
identifier or personally identifiable information. For example, a physical
address, date of birth, or other identifying information for entities on the
foreign terrorist organization list is often unavailable as entities often try
to conceal their identity or location, according to the Treasury Department.
When personally identifiable information such as date of birth is available,
similar information is not available in the public federal funding data source,
USAspending.gov. Specifically, although awarding agencies collect other
identifying information, such as phone numbers of entities seeking an award,
not all such information is reported in USAspending.gov. Together, these
challenges limit the ability to match foreign entities on certain lists with
those receiving government-wide funding.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The full Report is available, <a href="https://www.gao.gov/assets/d24106227.pdf">here</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-12057911922567177392024-01-22T20:46:00.002+00:002024-01-22T20:46:36.109+00:00Microsoft Threat Intelligence Report on Cybersecurity Attacks Against Universities<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">On January 17, 2024, Microsoft released a threat
intelligence report concerning cybersecurity attacks against certain university
researchers across the West and other countries. The threat report states, in part:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Since November 2023, Microsoft has observed a distinct subset
of Mint Sandstorm (PHOSPHORUS) targeting high-profile individuals working on
Middle Eastern affairs at universities and research organizations in Belgium,
France, Gaza, Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In this
campaign, Mint Sandstorm used bespoke phishing lures in an attempt to socially
engineer targets into downloading malicious files. In a handful of cases,
Microsoft observed new post-intrusion tradecraft including the use of a new,
custom backdoor called MediaPl.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Operators associated with this subgroup of Mint Sandstorm are
patient and highly skilled social engineers whose tradecraft lacks many of the
hallmarks that allow users to quickly identify phishing emails. In some
instances of this campaign, this subgroup also used legitimate but compromised
accounts to send phishing lures. Additionally, Mint Sandstorm continues to
improve and modify the tooling used in targets’ environments, activity that
might help the group persist in a compromised environment and better evade
detection.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The report is available, <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2024/01/17/new-ttps-observed-in-mint-sandstorm-campaign-targeting-high-profile-individuals-at-universities-and-research-orgs/">here</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-73188148562360262122023-12-19T21:16:00.003+00:002023-12-19T21:16:34.918+00:00U.S. DOJ and FTC Release Merger Guidelines<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade
Commission issued Merger Guidelines on December 18, 2023. The Press Release states, in part:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Today, the Justice Department and the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) jointly issued the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/atr/2023-merger-guidelines">2023 Merger
Guidelines</a>, which describe factors and frameworks the agencies utilize when
reviewing mergers and acquisitions. The 2023 Merger Guidelines are the
culmination of a nearly two-year process of public engagement and reflect
modern market realities, advances in economics and law, and the lived
experiences of a diverse array of market participants.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>“</b>These finalized Guidelines provide transparency into
how the Justice Department is protecting the American people from the ways in
which unlawful, anticompetitive practices manifest themselves in our modern
economy,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “Since releasing the Draft
Merger Guidelines earlier this summer, we have engaged with stakeholders across
the country, and the Guidelines are stronger as a result. The Justice
Department will continue to vigorously enforce the laws that safeguard competition
and protect all Americans.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">. . . The 2023 Merger Guidelines released today modify
the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/atr/d9/2023-draft-merger-guidelines">Draft
Merger Guidelines</a>, released on July 19, to address comments from the
public, including extensive engagement from attorneys, economists, academics,
enforcers, and other policymakers at the agencies’ three Merger Guidelines
Workshops. They emphasize the dynamic and complex nature of competition ranging
from price competition to competition for the terms and conditions of
employment, to platform competition. This approach enables the agencies to
assess the commercial realities of the United States’ modern economy when making
enforcement decisions and ensures that merger enforcement protects competition
in all its forms.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">. . . The robust process to develop the 2023 Merger
Guidelines began in January 2022. The agencies announced an initiative to
evaluate possible revisions to the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines and the
2020 Vertical Merger Guidelines and published a <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FTC-2022-0003/document" target="_blank">Request
for Information on Merger Enforcement</a>, which sought public comment on
modernizing merger enforcement. The agencies received more than 5,000 comments.
Commenters highlighted excessive market consolidation across industries and
overwhelmingly urged the agencies to strengthen their approach to merger
enforcement. At the agencies’ <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/events/2022/04/ftc-justice-department-listening-forum-firsthand-effects-mergers-acquisitions-health-care" target="_blank">four listening sessions</a>, business owners, workers, and
other advocates similarly highlighted the potential for mergers and
acquisitions to undermine open, vibrant, and competitive markets, in industries
ranging from food and agriculture to health care. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Informed by this feedback, agency experience and expertise,
as well as developments in the market, law, and economics, the agencies drafted
and jointly released a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/atr/d9/2023-draft-merger-guidelines">proposed
version</a> of the 2023 Merger Guidelines for public comment in July 2023
and received more than 30,000 comments reflecting the views of consumers,
workers, academics, interest organizations, attorneys, enforcers, and many
others across various sectors of the American economy. The agencies also held
three <a href="https://www.justice.gov/atr/public-workshops-2023-draft-merger-guidelines">Merger
Guidelines Workshops</a> to discuss the draft Merger Guidelines. This
engagement informed an in-depth revision process culminating in today’s release
of the 2023 Merger Guidelines.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Like the prior horizontal and vertical merger guidelines they
replace, the 2023 Merger Guidelines are not themselves legally binding, but
provide transparency into the agencies’ decision-making process. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The 2023 Merger Guidelines do not predetermine enforcement
action by the agencies. Although the Merger Guidelines identify the factors and
frameworks the agencies consider when investigating mergers, the agencies’
enforcement decisions will necessarily depend on the facts in any case and will
continue to require prosecutorial discretion and judgment.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .5in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The Merger Guidelines discuss the
issue of nascent technology: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">2.6.A. Entrenching a Dominant Position Raising Barriers to
Entry or Competition. . . . <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">·</span>
Increasing Switching Costs<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">·</span>
Interfering With the Use of Competitive Alternatives. . . . <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">·</span>
Depriving Rivals of Scale Economies or Network Effects. . . . <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>Eliminating a Nascent Competitive Threat.</b> A merger may
involve a dominant firm acquiring a nascent competitive threat—namely, a firm
that could grow into a significant rival, facilitate other rivals’ growth, or
otherwise lead to a reduction in its power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In some cases, the nascent threat may be a firm that provides a product
or service similar to the acquiring firm that does not substantially constrain
the acquiring firm at the time of the merger but has the potential to grow into
a more significant rival in the future. In other cases, factors such as network
effects, scale economies, or switching costs may make it extremely difficult
for a new entrant to offer all of the product features or services at
comparable quality and terms that an incumbent offers. The most likely
successful threats in these situations can be firms that initially avoid
directly entering the dominant firm’s market, instead specializing in (a)
serving a narrow customer segment, (b) offering services that only partially
overlap with those of the incumbent, or (c) serving an overlapping customer
segment with distinct products or services. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Firms with niche or only partially overlapping products or
customers can grow into longer-term threats to a dominant firm. Once
established in its niche, a nascent threat may be able to add features or serve
additional customer segments, growing into greater overlap of customer segments
or features over time, thereby intensifying competition with the dominant firm.
A nascent threat may also facilitate customers aggregating additional products
and services from multiple providers that serve as a partial alternative to the
incumbent’s offering. Thus, the success and independence of the nascent threat
may both provide for a direct threat of competition by the niche or nascent
firm and may facilitate competition or encourage entry by other, potentially
complementary providers that may provide a partial competitive constraint. In
this way, the nascent threat supports what may be referred to as “ecosystem”
competition. In this context, ecosystem competition refers to a situation where
an incumbent firm that offers a wide array of products and services may be
partially constrained by other combinations of products and services from one
or more providers, even if the business model of those competing services is
different. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Nascent threats may be particularly likely to emerge during
technological transitions. Technological transitions can render existing entry
barriers less relevant, temporarily making incumbents susceptible to
competitive threats. For example, technological transitions can create
temporary opportunities for entrants to differentiate or expand their offerings
based on their alignment with new technologies, enabling them to capture
network effects that otherwise insulate incumbents from competition. A merger
in this context may lessen competition by preventing or delaying any such
beneficial shift or by shaping it so that the incumbent retains its dominant
position. For example, a dominant firm might seek to acquire firms to help it
reinforce or recreate entry barriers so that its dominance endures past the
technological transition. Or it might seek to acquire nascent threats that
might otherwise gain sufficient customers to overcome entry barriers. In
evaluating the potential for entrenching dominance, the Agencies take
particular care to preserve opportunities for more competitive markets to
emerge during such technological shifts. Separate from and in addition to its
Section 7 analysis, the Agencies will consider whether the merger violates
Section 2 of the Sherman Act. For example, under Section 2 of the Sherman Act,
a firm that may challenge a monopolist may be characterized as a “nascent
threat” even if the impending threat is uncertain and may take several years to
materialize. The Agencies assess whether the merger is reasonably capable of
contributing significantly to the preservation of monopoly power in violation
of Section 2, which turns on whether the acquired firm is a nascent competitive
threat. (footnotes omitted). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Guideline 9 is titled, “When a Merger Involves a Multi-Sided
Platform, the Agencies Examine Competition Between Platforms, on a Platform, or
to Displace a Platform.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That Guideline
provides, in part: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Platforms provide different products or services to two or
more different groups or “sides” who may benefit from each other’s
participation. Mergers involving platforms can threaten competition, even when
a platform merges with a firm that is neither a direct competitor nor in a
traditional vertical relationship with the platform. When evaluating a merger
involving a platform, the Agencies apply Guidelines 1-6 while accounting for
market realities associated with platform competition. Specifically, the
Agencies consider competition between platforms, competition on a platform, and
competition to <i>displace</i> the platform. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Multi-sided platforms generally have several attributes in
common, though they can also vary in important ways. Some of these attributes
include: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">·</span>
Platforms have multiple <u>sides</u>. On each side of a platform, platform
participants provide or use distinct products and services. Participants can
provide or use different types of products or services on each side. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">·</span> A <u>platform
operator</u> provides the core services that enable the platform to connect
participant groups across multiple sides. The platform operator controls other
participants’ access to the platform and can influence how interactions among
platform participants play out. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">·</span> Each
side of a platform includes <u>platform participants</u>. Their participation
might be as simple as using the platform to find other participants, or as
involved as building platform services that enable other participants to
connect in new ways and allow new participants to join the platform. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">·</span> <u>Network
effects</u> occur when platform participants contribute to the value of the
platform for other participants and the operator. The value for groups of
participants on one side may depend on the number of participants either on the
same side (direct network effects) or on the other side(s) (indirect network
effects). Network effects can create a tendency toward concentration in
platform industries. Indirect network effects can be asymmetric and
heterogeneous; for example, one side of the market or segment of participants
may place relatively greater value on the other side(s). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">·</span> A <u>conflict
of interest</u> can arise when a platform operator is also a platform
participant. The Agencies refer to a “conflict of interest” as the divergence
that can arise between the operator’s incentives to operate the platform as a
forum for competition and its incentive to operate as a competitor on the
platform itself. As discussed below, a conflict of interest sometimes
exacerbates competitive concerns from mergers. Consistent with the Clayton
Act’s protection of competition “in any line of commerce,” the Agencies will seek
to prohibit a merger that harms competition within a relevant market for any
product or service offered on a platform to any group of participants—i.e.,
around one side of the platform (see Section 4.3).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The Agencies protect competition between platforms by
preventing the acquisition or exclusion of other platform operators that may
substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly. This scenario
can arise from various types of mergers: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">A. Mergers involving two platform operators eliminate the
competition between them. In a market with a platform, entry or growth by
smaller competing platforms can be particularly challenging because of network
effects. A common strategy for smaller platforms is to specialize, providing
distinctive features. Thus, dominant platforms can lessen competition and
entrench their position by systematically acquiring firms competing with one or
more sides of a multi-sided platform while they are in their infancy. The
Agencies seek to stop these trends in their incipiency. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">B. A platform operator may acquire a platform participant,
which can entrench the operator’s position by depriving rivals of participants
and, in turn, depriving them of network effects. For example, acquiring a major
seller on a platform may make it harder for rival platforms to recruit buyers.
The long-run benefits to a platform operator of denying network effects to
rival platforms create a powerful incentive to withhold or degrade those
rivals’ access to platform participants that the operator acquires. The more
powerful the platform operator, the greater the threat to competition presented
by mergers that may weaken rival operators or increase barriers to entry and
expansion. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">C. Acquisitions of firms that provide services that
facilitate participation on multiple platforms can deprive rivals of platform
participants. Many services can facilitate such participation, such as tools
that help shoppers compare prices across platforms, applications that help
sellers manage listings on multiple platforms, or software that helps users
switch among platforms. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">D. Mergers that involve firms that provide other important
inputs to platform services can enable the platform operator to deny rivals the
benefits of those inputs. For example, acquiring data that helps facilitate
matching, sorting, or prediction services may enable the platform to weaken
rival platforms by denying them that data. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The Agencies protect competition <i>on</i> a platform in any
markets that interact with the platform. When a merger involves a platform
operator and platform participants, the Agencies carefully examine whether the
merger would create conflicts of interest that would harm competition. A
platform operator that is also a platform participant may have a conflict of
interest whereby it has an incentive to give its own products and services an
advantage over other participants competing on the platform. Platform operators
must often choose between making it easy for users to access their preferred
products and directing those users to products that instead provide greater
benefit to the platform operator. Merging with a firm that makes a product
offered on the platform may change how the platform operator balances these
competing interests. For example, the platform operator may find it is more
profitable to give its own product greater prominence even if that product is
inferior or is offered on worse terms after the merger—and even if some
participants leave the platform as a result. This can harm competition in the
product market for the advantaged product, where the harm to competition may be
experienced both on the platform and in other channels. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The Agencies protect competition to <i>displace </i>the
platform or any of its services. For example, new technologies or services may
create an important opportunity for firms to replace one or more services the
incumbent platform operator provides, shifting some participants to partially
or fully meet their needs in different ways or through different channels.
Similarly, a non-platform service can lessen dependence on the platform by
providing an alternative to one or more functions provided by the platform
operators. When platform owners are dominant, the Agencies seek to prevent even
relatively small accretions of power from inhibiting the prospects for
displacing the platform or for decreasing dependency on the platform. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">In addition, a platform operator that advantages its own
products that compete on the platform can lessen competition between platforms
and to <i>displace</i> the platform, as the operator may both advantage its own
product or service, and also deprive rival platforms of access to it, limiting
those rivals’ network effects. (emphasis in original and footnotes omitted). </span><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-61426791349503183532023-12-14T21:18:00.002+00:002023-12-14T21:18:18.952+00:00U.S. House Report on Competition with Chinese Communist Party<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">On December 12, 2023, U.S. House of Representatives, select
Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the
Chinese Communist issued a 53 page report titled, “<a href="https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/reset-prevent-build-scc-report.pdf">Party, Reset, Present, and Build: A Strategy to Win America’s Economic Competition with the Chinese Communist Party.</a>” Unsurprisingly, the
report notes concerns with market access and intellectual property theft. The report also takes on U.S. companies,
including venture capitalists for funding China’s development, and China's WTO participation. The report sets forth three pillars with key
findings:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Pillar I: Reset the Terms of Our Economic Relationship
with the PRC <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">1. The PRC’s economic system is incompatible with the WTO and
undermines U.S. economic security. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">2. Despite the heightened risks associated with U.S.
investment in Chinese companies, the full extent and distribution of that risk
and the implications for U.S. national security and financial stability remain
unknown. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">3. The United States lacks a contingency plan for the
economic and financial impacts of conflict with the PRC. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">4. The PRC uses an intricate web of industrial policies,
including subsidies, forced technology transfer, and market access
restrictions, to distort market behavior, achieve dominance in global markets,
and increase U.S. dependency on PRC imports. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">5. The widespread adoption of certain PRC-developed
technologies in the United States poses a significant risk to U.S. national
security and data protection concerns and threatens long-term U.S.
technological competitiveness.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Pillar II: Stem the Flow of U.S. Capital and Technology
Fueling the PRC’s Military Modernization and Human Rights Abuses <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">1. American investors wittingly and unwittingly support the
PRC’s defense industry, emerging technology companies, and human rights abuses.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">2. U.S. export controls have been slow to adapt to rapid
changes in technology and attempts by adversaries to blur the lines between
private and public sector entities, particularly the PRC’s strategy of
Military-Civil Fusion. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">3. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States
(CFIUS) needs additional authorities and tools to effectively evaluate inbound
investments from the PRC. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">4. The PRC exploits the openness of the U.S. research
environment to steal U.S. intellectual property (IP) and transfer technology to
advance its economic and security interests to the detriment of the United
States. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Pillar III: Invest in Technological Leadership and Build
Collective Economic Resilience in Concert with Allies <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">1. The United States is falling behind in the race for
leadership in certain critical technologies. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">2. The PRC is gaining on the United States in the race for
global talent. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">3. By working with allies, the United States can increase
U.S. exports, reduce supply chain reliance on the PRC, and counter the PRC’s
economic and technology mercantilism. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">4. The United States is dangerously dependent on the PRC for
critical mineral imports. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">5. The United States’ dependence on the PRC for
pharmaceutical and medical device supply chains poses a distinct national
security risk. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">6. Through its Belt and Road Initiative, the CCP has expanded
its influence around the world and gained significant positions in key supply
chains and strategic infrastructure, such as ports and space facilities.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .5in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The findings are followed by
specific policy prescriptions. For example, for pillar two, finding four, the
policy prescriptions include: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Recommendation 4: Strengthen U.S. research security and
defend against malign talent recruitment.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">1. Build upon cross-agency disclosure guidance produced under
National Security Presidential Memorandum 33 (NSPM-33) by the National Science
Foundation (NSF) to mitigate research security risk by requiring all federal
research funding applicants to disclose details about past, present, and
pending relations and interest with foreign governments, foreign government
controlled entities, or entities located in foreign adversary countries, in the
past five years for themselves and any key member of their team who will be
involved in fundamental research supported by the grant and update such
disclosure annually throughout the funding period. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">2. Create and maintain an unclassified database using
open-source information to keep track of PRC research entities that engage in
defense and military research and civil military fusion programs. This database
can inform U.S. universities and researchers about current and future research
collaborations and help federal grant-providing agencies vet grant proposals
for risk mitigation. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">3. Enact legislation that would prohibit U.S. entities from
engaging in research collaborations with PRC entities involved with military
and defense research and development (R&D), to include those that are on
the International Trade Administration’s Consolidated Screening List, the
Department of Defense’s Chinese Military Companies List, and the U.S. Air
Force’s China Aerospace Studies Institute’s list of PRC Defense Science and
Technology Key Labs. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">4. Require U.S. research institutions to obtain an export
control license if they intend to use any export-controlled item that has a
clear and distinct national security nexus, during the course of research
collaboration on critical and emerging technologies with any foreign adversary
entity. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">5. Exercise oversight on enforcement of existing rules in
Sec. 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA) (P.L. 89–329) that requires
U.S. universities to disclose of foreign gifts and contracts reaching certain
threshold to the Department of Education. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">6. Strengthen Sec. 117 of HEA by requiring U.S. universities
to apply the “know-your-customer/donor” rule to understand who the benefactors
are for foreign gifts and contracts channeled through U.S.-incorporated 501c(3)
entities. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">7. Require the Department of State to establish “human
rights” and “military end-use” guardrails in any Science and Technology
Agreement with the PRC and ensure sufficient consultations with appropriate
Congressional committees throughout the negotiation process, as outlined in the
Science and Technology Agreement Enhanced Congressional Notification Act of
2023 (H.R. 5245). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">8. Require universities that receive federal grants for
fundamental research to fully implement NSPM-33, to create and implement
risk-based security reviews to detect and counter PRC malign influence and
technology transfer risk.</span><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-16672155748711517792023-12-11T22:57:00.004+00:002023-12-11T22:57:50.103+00:00The Exercise of Bayh-Dole March-in Rights Coming Soon?<p><span style="font-family: arial;">The U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of
Standards and Technology has released a proposed framework for analyzing
whether march-in rights under the Bayh-Dole Act should be exercised. Notably, march-in rights have never been
exercised. A concern is that exercise of
the rights could create a disincentive for companies to invest in
commercializing government funded inventions.
Additionally, there is a concern that basing the exercise of march-in
rights on pricing concerns will be particularly harmful. The proposed framework can be found,
<a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/12/08/2023-26930/request-for-information-regarding-the-draft-interagency-guidance-framework-for-considering-the">here</a>. There is a comment period as
well. The proposed framework contains
several Scenarios with a sample analysis of the problem. All of the Scenarios are worth reviewing, but
I found 5 and 6 to be particularly interesting.
The following includes the analysis under Scenario 5 and 6:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">Scenario 5<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Background:</i> A water filtration company has an
exclusive license from a government-funded university to patents covering a
subject invention for point-of-use water purification technology. The company
manufactures a small device, which can be used to remove organic contaminants
like pesticides in households that get their drinking water from wells. Ten
years ago, a certain pesticide became very popular because it was safe for
native U.S. pollinators but effective at combatting an invasive beetle
destroying crops nationwide. But recent studies have shown a ten-fold increase
in pediatric cancers that is connected to drinking groundwater contaminated
with that pesticide. The water filtration company's point-of-use purification
device is uniquely able to remove even trace amounts of that pesticide. As a
result, demand has spiked. However, the company has not increased its
manufacturing pace, so the price of the devices has jumped 1000% in the past
three months. The combination of the limited supply and increased prices has resulted
in a health emergency that cannot be adequately addressed without expanding
capacity. Three other manufacturers and a dozen rural community groups have
asked the government funding agency to march-in and issue licenses to increase
supply and reduce cost of the specialized filters. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Discussion:</i> Given the pressing need, march-in would be
among a range of options the agency would likely consider for resolving this
problem promptly and protecting children. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Statutory Criteria</i> —In this scenario, it appears that
march-in may alleviate a health or safety need that, at this time, is not
reasonably being satisfied by the contractor or its licensee (Statutory
Criterion 2). First, the agency would seek to confirm underlying information,
including about the health or safety need. For example, the agency would
consult with experts and appropriate agencies, seek available information about
how the pesticide contributes to pediatric cancer, and investigate how (and how
effectively) this purification device removes the pesticide (Statutorily
Defined March-In Criteria; Criterion 2; Sections I–III). The agency would also
confirm basic facts with the contractor, including whether it is refusing to
ramp up manufacturing and how much the price has increased. All of this would
be with an eye toward mitigating the risk of pediatric cancer, which in this
scenario would appear to require an increased supply and accessible filtration
devices (Section IV). The agency would likely assess whether the contractor is
in fact exploiting the health or safety need to set a product price that is
egregious within the U.S. market and unjustified given the totality of
circumstances (Section IV, E). If the evidence suggests this 1000% increase was
an intentional act by the company to “cash-in” on this newly discovered health
and safety need, that would weigh in favor of march-in. However, if the entire
market has seen similar price increases and there is a compelling justification
for such a high price, <i>e.g.,</i> a shortage of essential raw materials is
making increased production impossible, that would weigh against march-in. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Policy & Objectives of Bayh-Dole</i> —The agency would
similarly need to assess the practical impact of march-in on the unmet need and
carefully evaluate all alternatives (Would March-In Support the Policy &
Objective of Bayh-Dole). For example, if the pesticide stays in the water supply
long term and there's no indication other solutions will become available very
soon, that would weigh in favor of march-in. If farmers are no longer using the
pesticide in question and it dissipates quickly, then the demand for filters
could subside soon, weighing against march-in. Additionally, the fact that
there are already other interested manufacturers suggests march-in could
increase production by these entities soon, weighing in favor of march-in.
However, the agency would need to examine the capability of the prospective
licensees and manufacturers and be comfortable these are “reasonable
applicants” that could get a product to market (Section I, E). Here again, the
agency would also consider possible alternatives, like other technologies to
protect children (Section II). For example, perhaps another agency has already
banned the pesticide and that, combined with an alternative filtration
technology, could bring the pesticide levels to a safe percentage within the
year, weighing against march-in. Finally, the agency would analyze the wider
implications of march-in to ensure consistency with Bayh-Dole policy and
objectives (Section III). The agency may determine that exercising march-in
rights would have a meaningful positive impact on child health, increase
confidence that federally funded inventions are available to improve the lives
of Americans, result in increased competition, and set an example of actions by
contractors or licensees that are “off limits.” The agency may determine those
factors outweigh any negative impacts on investments in future federal R&D,
given the apparent bad-faith actions of the contractor (Sections III, A, 2;
III, 3).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">Scenario 6<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Background:</i> In the early stages of a respiratory virus
pandemic, a consumer goods company working under a government contract
developed improved face masks that filter out 99% of that virus' particles. The
contractor filed for a patent on its mask technology, and it reported the
subject invention and associated patent application to the government. During a
three-week window, several experts published studies confirming that the virus
spreads easily and rapidly through airborne transmission. The following week,
the consumer goods company increased the price of its masks 100%, and it
continued to raise the price over the course of a month, resulting in a 400%
price increase. The company has also sent letters to other mask manufacturers,
flagging the pending patent application and promising to file lawsuits against
any infringers as soon as the patent issues. Trade associations representing
frontline healthcare workers asked the government funding agency to march-in
and issue licenses to those other manufacturers to bring down the price of the
masks. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Discussion:</i> Given the urgent need, march-in would be
among a range of options the agency would likely consider for resolving this
problem promptly and protecting frontline workers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Statutory Criteria</i> —In this scenario, it appears there
could be actions that promote nonuse or unreasonable use of the subject
invention (Criterion 1) as well as health and safety needs that are not being
reasonably satisfied by the contractor (Statutory Criterion 2). The agency
would first ask the contractor for information to confirm the basic facts—for
example, that the contractor has increased price 400%, how that increase
compares to prices for other masks, how that price point compares to the cost
of developing and manufacturing the masks, that the contractor has filed for
patents, and that it is threatening to file suit against competing
manufacturers when a patent issues. Based on that, the agency could continue
its inquiry to assess whether march-in would alleviate an unmet health need
and/or ensure the benefits of the mask are available to the public on
reasonable terms, exploring questions detailed in Statutorily Defined March-In
Criteria; Criterion 1 and 2. In this scenario, more affordable masks are needed
and it may be that more mask production would bring down the price (Section
III; IV, E). The agency would likely need more information to assess whether
the contractor is exploiting the health or safety need in setting a product
price that is egregious within the U.S. market and unjustified given the
totality of circumstances and/or whether the masks are available on reasonable
terms (Section IV, E). By rapidly increasing the price of masks and threatening
other manufacturers with litigation during an urgent public health need, the
contractor seems focused on keeping prices unusually high while not satisfying
demand. This could weigh in favor of march-in. But the agency would need
additional information, for example, to understand the unmet need, how march-in
would impact it, and why the contractor is responding this way. Are other mask
manufacturers charging similarly high prices under the circumstances, all to
fund facility expansion? If so, that would weigh against march-in (Section IV,
E). Is there a strong connection between mask usage (or mask availability) and
public health benefit? Does this mask provide unique benefits over others?
Stronger evidence the masks resolve a health need could weigh more in favor of
march-in, whereas tangential evidence of unique benefits could weigh against
march-in (Section III). Is there a legitimate reason not to license other
manufacturers for this mask, <i>e.g.,</i> they lack capacity or capability?
Answers to those questions could justify the contractor's actions and weigh
against march-in (Section IV, E). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Policy & Objectives of Bayh-Dole</i> —The first part
of this analysis looks at whether march-in would promote utilization and
protect against non-use of the subject invention (Would March-In Support The
Policy & Objective Of Bayh-Dole Section I). The agency would need to
understand whether other manufacturers are “responsible applicants” that would
be interested and willing to make the masks in question (Section I, E). The
agency would also likely want to understand the impact of the pending patent
application and threat of (possible) litigation on the other manufacturers (I,
B; II, E). If the other manufacturers are actually deterred from making the
product, then that could weigh in favor of march-in. However, if other
manufacturers do not believe valid patents are going to issue on this subject
invention, and those manufacturers are willing to immediately start
manufacturing masks, that could weigh against march-in. The agency would also
consider whether other action might be warranted—for example, the agency
purchasing or manufacturing the masks itself at a lower price (Section II, A).
Whether march-in would protect the public against non-use or unreasonable use
of subject inventions more broadly likely depends on similar facts (Section
III). However, in a situation of a pressing health or safety need, where a
contractor is artificially keeping supply low while demand for a product is
high or artificially increasing the price, march-in could deter others from
similar actions in the future without impacting contractors and licensees who
act in good faith to bring products to market and meet market demand (Section
III, A, 2).</span><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-85163305755137332922023-11-30T14:02:00.002+00:002023-11-30T14:02:41.725+00:00Copyright and Artificial Intelligence. Free Webinar 7th of December 2023. 3 p.m. GMT = 4 p.m. CET<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div align="center">
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<h1 align="center" data-testid="AZafQotj6" style="margin-top: 7.5pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Join </span>For a Free Webinar</h1>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" data-testid="AZafQotj6" style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 7.5pt; text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">7th December 2023, 15:00GMT</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Ubuntu",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" data-testid="AZafQotj6" style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 7.5pt; text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">register Here:</span></i></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" data-testid="AZafQotj6" style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 7.5pt; text-align: center;">https://oxfirst.com/copyright-ai/</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" data-testid="WHFEa5uYQ" style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 7.5pt; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Artificial intelligence is an increasingly present force
in everyday life and one that is currently attracting the attention of
regulatory bodies around the world. The US Copyright Office, the
Canadian Government and others have all launched consultations this
year to examine the issues. Equally Sweden is starting to take an interest in this topic. In this panel discussion, we are joined by Swedish authorities and copyright experts who will highlight some of the opportunities and risks
associated with the incorporation of AI into creative industries, as
well as consider implications for makers, users and the broader
copyright system. This promises to be a timely and enlightening
discussion. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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Speakers</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Ubuntu",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><img id="_x0000_i1025" src="http://xqgx.mj.am/img2/xqgx/3d6eda78-1277-4d14-a80f-d027f29be8a1/content" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; display: block; font-size: 13px; height: auto; outline: none; text-decoration: none; width: 100%;" width="148" /><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<h3 data-testid="uNZQ-g6pNkVIKFr2i1tcI" style="margin-top: 7.5pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Prof. Dr. Martin Senftleben, Professor
of Intellectual Property Law, Amsterdam Law School <o:p></o:p></span></h3>
<p class="MsoNormal" data-testid="uNZQ-g6pNkVIKFr2i1tcI" style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 7.5pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Martin
Senftleben is Professor of Intellectual Property Law and Director,
Institute for Information Law (IViR), University of Amsterdam. His
activities focus on the reconciliation of private intellectual property
rights with competing public interests of a social, cultural or
economic nature. Amongst his current research topics are AI training
and text and data mining; machine substitution of human creative labour
and author remuneration; data property and internet of things; open
science and digital sovereignty of researchers; platform and digital
ecosystem regulation. Professor Senftleben studied law at the
University of Heidelberg and worked as a researcher at IViR and the Max
Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich. In 2004, he
was awarded a Ph.D. by the University of Amsterdam. Professor
Senftleben previously worked at WIPO in Geneva and was was Professor of
Intellectual Property at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam for 13 years.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><img id="_x0000_i1026" src="http://xqgx.mj.am/img2/xqgx/da706c32-8087-4aec-ab39-691f44bd4af4/content" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; display: block; font-size: 13px; height: auto; outline: none; text-decoration: none; width: 100%;" width="148" /><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<h3 data-testid="pxlG5sPh6CLZHJkSrlWwg" style="margin-top: 7.5pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sofie Grettve von Rosen, Supervisory
Officer for Collective Management of Copyright of the Swedish
Intellectual Property Office (PRV)<o:p></o:p></span></h3>
<p class="MsoNormal" data-testid="pxlG5sPh6CLZHJkSrlWwg" style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 7.5pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Sofie
Grettve von Rosen has a law degree from London School of Economics with
a specialisation in EU law. After working within contentious litigation
in London, Mrs. Grettve von Rosen spent a few years in New York and
Paris working within the arts’ sector. Following the completion of a
Masters in Cultural Heritage Policy, Mrs. Grettve von Rosen joined the
Swedish Artists’ Association as General Counsel and also worked with
the implementation of the Resale Right Directive. She joined the
Swedish Intellectual Property Office in 2021 where she has primarily
worked with building up the office’s function as a Supervisory
Authority. Parallel to her legal work, Mrs. Grettve von Rosen has been
involved in several research projects relating to the organisation of control
structures. She has a particular interest in governance and the use of
soft law as a regulatory tool. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<br /><br /><p></p>OxFirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14098279382291803510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-29031072121351244722023-11-22T19:37:00.002+00:002023-11-22T19:37:32.740+00:00IP Valuation for Licensing<p> </p><div align="center">
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<h1 align="center" data-testid="AZafQotj6" style="margin-top: 7.5pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Join </span></h1>
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a Free Webinar</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Ubuntu",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></h1><div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"> Register here: </span><a href="https://oxfirst.com/ip-valuation-for-licensing/" style="background-color: white; color: #681da8; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">https://oxfirst.com/ip-valuation-for-licensing</a></div>
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<h2 align="center" data-testid="o3NEjEeOJ" style="margin-top: 7.5pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">IP Valuation for
Licensing</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Ubuntu",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p align="center" class="text-build-content" data-testid="o3NEjEeOJ" style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 7.5pt; text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">27th November 2023, 11:00GMT</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Ubuntu",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="text-build-content" data-testid="UQS6Bhhx4nS3qrxfe6HL2" style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 7.5pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Licensing
is crucial to intellectual property commercialization and effective
licensing programs can underpin corporate success. IP valuation is an
essential tool for developing effective licensing strategies, providing
an empirical basis from which decision-makers can chart the right
course. In this panel, we discuss how IP valuation can be best tailored
to, and utilized in, licensing strategies. Our excellent panel share
decades of experience and bridge industry, law, and economics to bring
a unique and invaluable perspective to this discussion.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<h2 align="center" style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 7.5pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">About the
Speakers</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Ubuntu",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><img id="_x0000_i1025" src="http://xqgx.mj.am/img2/xqgx/db6e6511-dd24-4979-9751-4834a57c43d5/content" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; display: block; font-size: 13px; height: auto; outline: none; text-decoration: none; width: 100%;" width="148" /><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<h2 data-testid="h3o7qSLxosbjkucauBgj1" style="margin-top: 7.5pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mitsuaki Matsumura, Head of IP
Licensing, APAC and EMEA at IBM<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="text-build-content" data-testid="h3o7qSLxosbjkucauBgj1" style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 7.5pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Mitsuaki
Matsumura is Head of IP Licensing for APAC & EMEA at IBM. He leads
the team of professionals that handle all IBM’s patent licensing and
assignment opportunities in APAC and EMEA. Prior to joining IBM, Dr.
Matsumura worked as a Senior Counsel at NTT DOCOMO, where he was in
charge of SEP licensing, technology alliances, and cross border
M&As. He holds a PhD (Kyoto University) in law and an LL.M. in Law,
Science, and Technology from Stanford University.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<h2 data-testid="TF9AvKIJdxJIVSmEdwXG4" style="margin-top: 7.5pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Greg Novak, Partner at Novak Druce
Caroll LLP<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="text-build-content" data-testid="TF9AvKIJdxJIVSmEdwXG4" style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 7.5pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Greg
Novak is a partner at Novak Druce Carroll, where he counsels a number
of publicly traded global corporations on intellectual property
matters. Greg has acted as lead counsel for both plaintiffs and
defendants in more than 60 intellectual property cases, and has advised
in more than 300 post-grant proceedings. Greg obtained his MBA from the
Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, where he also co-founded
the Centre for Professional Service Firms. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<h2 data-testid="jNQxtVuw0zuiu0Z5cuyGF" style="margin-top: 7.5pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Anri Nakamoto, Senior Associate, Orrick<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="text-build-content" data-testid="jNQxtVuw0zuiu0Z5cuyGF" style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 7.5pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anri
Nakamoto is a senior associate at Orrick, based in the Tokyo office.
Anri’s practice focusses on representing clients in patent litigation,
trade secret litigation and other intellectual property disputes as
well as licensing matters. Prior to joining Orrick, Anri worked for
more than a decade at Hitachi Ltd., Panasonic Corporation and IP
Bridge, Inc. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<h2 data-testid="IRJ4LG-rieJapgDvyWT4O" style="margin-top: 7.5pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dr. Roya Ghafele, Managing Director at
OxFirst<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="text-build-content" data-testid="IRJ4LG-rieJapgDvyWT4O" style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 7.5pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Dr.
Roya Ghafele is the founder and Managing Director of OxFirst, an
award-winning law and economics consultancy. Much of its work is with
tech companies as well as advising on public policymaking in the area
of technology transfer. Dr. Ghafele is a visiting Professor at Brunel
University, London as well as being an accredited expert witness to
courts in England and Wales. Prior to founding OxFirst, Dr. Ghafele
held an Assistant Professorship with the University of Edinburgh, a
Departmental Lectureship with Oxford University and a Research
Fellowship with the Haas School of Business, University of California
at Berkeley. She also worked for the OECD and WIPO as an economist.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="text-build-content" data-testid="IRJ4LG-rieJapgDvyWT4O" style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 7.5pt;"><br /></p><p class="text-build-content" data-testid="IRJ4LG-rieJapgDvyWT4O" style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 7.5pt;"><a href="https://oxfirst.com/ip-valuation-for-licensing/">IP Valuation for Licensing - OxFirst</a></p>
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</div>OxFirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14098279382291803510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-30148237613868295922023-11-06T16:42:00.000+00:002023-11-06T16:42:51.350+00:00US leadership through promoting what works best for International Standards<i>The United States Government National Standards Strategy for Critical and Emerging Technology</i> calls for a whole of government approach to reinvigorate its rules-based and private sector-led approach to standards development. The strategy seeks to prioritize efforts for standards development that are essential for US competitiveness and national security including communication and networking technologies, semiconductors and microelectronics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, biotechnologies, clean energy, and quantum information technologies.<a href="file:///C:/Users/KeithMallinson/Dropbox/Keith">[1]</a> <div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXLgVLqaTbh9adIffRkMrWyX3QfCOkPn3bROxtLaxzBEYC2GEsQ4FD7jAjY585A9FRDN4-9LDgnUR1tUywl2rpb8unbqKt9u77FXCjN4cNzhbSySG604zWcCbP5BS8-jI4nJGrIK7JFjtZDKEvqtiWYBtrWeXCwN7-kKtRMaxqOHSafvJsp0vuuJe33sc/s225/USPTO%20logo.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXLgVLqaTbh9adIffRkMrWyX3QfCOkPn3bROxtLaxzBEYC2GEsQ4FD7jAjY585A9FRDN4-9LDgnUR1tUywl2rpb8unbqKt9u77FXCjN4cNzhbSySG604zWcCbP5BS8-jI4nJGrIK7JFjtZDKEvqtiWYBtrWeXCwN7-kKtRMaxqOHSafvJsp0vuuJe33sc/s1600/USPTO%20logo.png" width="225" /></a></div><br />The International Trade Administration (ITA), The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) have asked <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-09-11/html/2023-19667.htm"><b>a dozen questions in their request for public comments on the strategy</b></a>. I responded with <a href="https://www.wiseharbor.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Mallinson-WiseHarbor-Comments-USPTO-on-Standards-Mallinson-2023.11.06.pdf"><b>my in-depth submission which can be downloaded, here</b></a>. <br /><br />In this, my focus is on technical standards providing interoperability in communications and networking technologies. These have been most significant technically, economically and in improving consumer welfare in the US and globally over several decades. Purely national or geographically limited technical standards might make sense in limited cases for reasons of national security, but there is broad consensus that standardizing globally is most effective and efficient due to economies of scale and the universal interoperability provided. Various “International Standards” have also flourished because, in accordance with World Trade Organisation (WTO) Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) requirements, these also foster various competing business models. Some industry participants are dependent on generating licensing royalties, others move fast and succeed in downstream product markets by licensing-in standard-essential technologies and incorporating semiconductor chips and other components that already include them. Many other companies have hybrid business models that operate in both ways concurrently.<a href="file:///C:/Users/KeithMallinson/Dropbox/Keith">[2]</a> <br /><br />My responses explain that what is good for International Standard development with Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) licensing of Standard-Essential Patents (SEPs) is also good for America. The US is the world leader in various advanced technologies — as a technology developer, and as an implementer. For market leaders, more can usually be gained by growing the pie than by simply taking share from others.<br /><br />The US should promote predictability with legal certainty in institutions and open market processes that have proven successful in the development of International Standards by private sector companies. Intellectual property rights (IPR) policies and legal rulings in foreign jurisdictions are threatening US leadership and development of International Standards overall by eroding and potentially severely undermining the value of patented standard-essential technologies. While these actions might provide some short-term advantage to certain implementers; for example in Asia where the overwhelming majority of consumer electronics products implementing Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) are manufactured, in the medium and long term these policies and rulings impede technical and market developments across the entire ecosystem, and in turn harm consumer welfare.<div><div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
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<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/KeithMallinson/Dropbox/Keith's%20Business/Events/2023/Public%20listening%20session%20on%20stds%20and%20IP%20Sept%202023/Mallinson%20WiseHarbor%20Comments%20USPTO%20on%20Standards%20Mallinson%202023.11.06.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/US-Gov-National-Standards-Strategy-2023.pdf"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">United States Government National
Standards Strategy for Critical and Emerging Technology</span></a><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">,
May 4, 2023.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/KeithMallinson/Dropbox/Keith's%20Business/Events/2023/Public%20listening%20session%20on%20stds%20and%20IP%20Sept%202023/Mallinson%20WiseHarbor%20Comments%20USPTO%20on%20Standards%20Mallinson%202023.11.06.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
These important distinctions are explicitly recognized by competition
authorities; for example, in the <a href="https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2023-07/2023_revised_horizontal_guidelines_en.pdf">EU’s
2023 <i>Horizontal Guidelines,</i> paragraph 440.</a> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</div></div></div>Keith Mallinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06641698749106397850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-48995212976626194482023-10-27T20:27:00.000+01:002023-10-27T20:27:20.692+01:00Five Eyes on China: 60 Minutes<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Members of the Five Eyes recently provided a brief overview
of the threat of technology theft concerning China on the U.S. 60 Minutes show. The interview includes brief mention of
academic security as well as election influence. The interview can be found, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikh3ncJZPTU">here</a>. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-89030622801603277182023-10-18T08:35:00.000+01:002023-10-18T08:35:03.922+01:00IP Valuation for Investment - Free Webinar 25th October 2023, 15:00BST<p> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><b style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 115%;">IP Valuation for Investment</span></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Attracting investment is vital for sustaining and growing
innovative businesses. Intellectual property is often crucial in attracting
capital, and so proper valuation and management of IP is essential to the success
of the business. This panel discussion considers the best way to approach using
IP valuation to attract investment, drawing on the diverse and extensive
experiences of our excellent panelists. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">About the Speakers<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-no-proof: yes;"><v:shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" id="_x0000_t75" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f">
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</v:imagedata></v:shape></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Olivia Tsai, Assistant General Counsel & Head of IP at Cruise<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Olivia
Tsai is Assistant General Counsel and Head of IP at Cruise, a position she has
held for the last six years. In this role, Olivia draws on her extensive
experience in intellectual property and a background in electrical engineering.
Cruise is a $30 billion autonomous all electric vehicle company in founded in
2013 and based in San Fransisco, and its driverless cars can also be found in
Austin and Phoenix.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-no-proof: yes;"><v:shape id="Picture_x0020_3" o:spid="_x0000_i1027" style="height: 152.5pt; mso-wrap-style: square; visibility: visible; width: 137.5pt;" type="#_x0000_t75">
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</v:imagedata></v:shape></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Cara Wessel Wells, Founder & CEO of EmGenisys<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Cara Wessels Wells, PhD is the
founder and CEO of EmGenisys. Based in Texas, Cara has a background in Animal
Sciences and Reproductive Physiology. EmGenisys provides comprehensive health
evaluations of embryos using machine learning models to non-invasively analyze
changes and improve pregnancy rates by up to 20% in both livestock species and
clinical human IVF. Cara brings an invaluable startup perspective to this
discussion. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><b><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Tracy W. Druce, Partner at Novak Druce Carroll</span></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Tracy Druce has 25 years of
experience in intellectual property and is a founding partner at Novak Druce
Carroll LLP. Tracy counsels companies of all sizes on intellectual property
creation, management and exploitation, and these companies are frequently in
industries where the technology is fast moving. Tracy works to establish
monetizable intellectual property portfolios through a thorough understanding
of the relevant market and close collaboration with his clients. Tracy will
chair this webinar. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><v:shape id="Picture_x0020_1" o:spid="_x0000_i1025" style="height: 164.5pt; mso-wrap-style: square; visibility: visible; width: 164.5pt;" type="#_x0000_t75">
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<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Dr. Roya Ghafele, Managing Director at OxFirst<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Dr. Roya Ghafele is the founder and
Managing Director of OxFirst, an award-winning law and economics consultancy.
Much of its work is with tech companies as well as advising on public
policymaking in the area of technology transfer. Dr. Ghafele is a visiting
Professor at Brunel University, London as well as being an accredited expert
witness to courts in England and Wales. Prior to founding OxFirst, Dr. Ghafele
held an Assistant Professorship with the University of Edinburgh, a
Departmental Lectureship with Oxford University and a Research Fellowship with
the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley. She also
worked for the OECD and WIPO as an economist.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></o:p></span><b style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">How to Join</span></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoPlainText" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Register
in advance for this webinar:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoPlainText" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="DE"><a href="https://oxfirst.com/ip-valuation-for-investment/"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">https://oxfirst.com/ip-valuation-for-investment/</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoPlainText" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">After
registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about
joining the webinar.</span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoPlainText" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; text-align: left;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Attention, please sign up with your professional email
account. We don’t accept registrations from personal email addresses.
Participation is limited at 100 participants. We reserve the right to eliminate
participants. By joining the webinar you agree to our Privacy Policy and to receive forthcoming information on our webinars,
newsletters and events. The views in this talk are the speaker’s own and do not
represent those of the organizers, its employees or consultants.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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<!--[endif]--></span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>OxFirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14098279382291803510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-76315819302111455592023-10-05T13:47:00.003+01:002023-10-05T13:47:49.111+01:00UK Rejoins Horizon Europe - Implications for patent value<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Earlier this month, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-joins-horizon-europe-under-a-new-bespoke-deal">Prime
Minister Rishi Sunak announced</a> that the UK will associate to Horizon Europe
and the Copernicus Earth observation programme. This association and future
membership is good news for British innovators who can once more now lead
collaborations with their European colleagues and obtain the necessary funding
to make the next generation of scientific breakthroughs. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Horizon Europe is the ninth European Union (EU) framework
programme funding research, technological development and innovation and runs
between 2021 and 2027. Although a product of the EU, Horizon also includes several
members outside of the Union: Israel, New Zealand and Ukraine also participate.
Copernicus is an Earth observation programme managed by the European Commission
(EC). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Researchers in the UK are now able to apply for grants and
bid to lead projects under the Horizon programme. Almost <span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">€</span>100 billion is available under the
programme over its lifetime, and under the previous framework – Horizon 2020 – UK
researchers received about 14% of the available grants. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The UK has a particularly strong research sector, and that
will only be further supported through renewed access to the Horizon programme.
Private sector research and development (R&D) is worth £43 billion to the
UK each year and many companies spin out of UK universities each year on the
back of a great innovation; Oxford alone has generated <a href="https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2023-05-23-oxford-retains-top-spot-spinouts">205
spinouts since 2011</a>. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As UK R&D resumes its cooperation with European partners
in a leadership role, careful attention should be paid to intellectual property
(IP) from the outset. Translating the innovations of the lab to the marketplace
where their life-changing effect can be felt requires well-informed IP strategy
and an acute awareness of how IP functions as an economic asset. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In a previous article, we discussed how IP can be utilised
throughout a company’s lifecycle to raise capital (which you can read there <a href="https://oxfirst.com/insights-&-news/can-patents-resolve-the-quest-for-capital/">here</a><span class="MsoHyperlink">)</span> but at each phase proper valuation of a company’s IP
is crucial. Raising capital through IP is likely to be most important for
startups and spinouts, where other assets might be limited and a financial
injection is required to bring the latest breakthrough to the market. OxFirst has
previously assisted a young Software as a Service (SaaS) access over £25
million in funding through a patent valuation. This patent valuation enabled
the company’s value proposition to be effectively communicated to investors, persuading
them to invest. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Outside of raising capital, proper management of IP is also vital
for effective commercialisation of IP. Patent filings have grown at roughly 10%
year on year, but evidence shows that only a fraction of that IP can be linked
to commercial activity. Bridging the gap between law and economics, is important for developing an effective IP strategy that will support
business growth and ensure proper IP utilisation. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A first important step is knowing where you stand: innovative
companies benefit from understanding the patent landscape in which they find
themselves. Patent landscape reports combine IP data with a comprehensive
market understanding to generate actionable insights. These reports can assist
in identifying potential partners and competitors, as well as broader trends
within the landscape that can inform how the company should most effectively manage
its IP. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Once opportunities have been identified, the next step for
decisionmakers is to consider how their IP assets might be most effectively
commercialised. One approach is licensing, and IP valuation are an important instrument to support companies commercialise their IP assets in this way. Selling IP might also be an attractive option, and IP valuations helped determine the patent prize in a patent
sale. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Knowing what and how IP can be most effectively
commercialised is fundamental to a successful IP strategy, and it is only by
understanding in detail the economic implications of IP management approaches
that this can be realised. Whether it is raising capital, commercialisation
through licensing, IP sales or IP intelligence, bringing economic evaluation to the management of IP and achieving
success for innovators. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>OxFirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14098279382291803510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-10580024132375300912023-10-04T09:13:00.002+01:002023-10-04T09:13:46.128+01:00 ITA-NIST-USPTO Collaboration Requests Comments on Standards<p> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has
recently announced a collaboration with the International Trade Administration
(ITA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on
standards in intellectual property (IP) and <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/09/11/2023-19667/joint-ita-nist-uspto-collaboration-initiative-regarding-standards-notice-of-public-listening-session">is
requesting comments</a>. It develops on the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/US-Gov-National-Standards-Strategy-2023.pdf">National
Standards Strategy for Critical and Emerging Technologies</a> released in May
this year. That strategy called for a strengthening of US engagement in
standards for such technologies, which includes communication and networking,
semiconductors, artificial intelligence/machine learning, clean energy and
quantum technologies. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This request invites respondents to answer 12 questions
concerning a range of issues including fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory
(FRAND) licensing practices, licensing rates and negotiations of them, the
merits of a database of FRAND licensing rates (judicially determined or voluntarily
publicised), and dispute resolution processes including alternative dispute
resolution. The request is therefore wide-ranging, as expected with such an
early stage of policy formation, but must be read in light of – and perhaps as
a response to – the recent <a href="https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2023-04/COM_2023_232_1_EN_ACT_part1_v13.pdf">proposal
by the European commission on the regulation of standard essential patents</a>
(SEPs) (which I have already covered and you can read about <a href="https://oxfirst.com/insights-&-news/frand-determination-is-center-stage-in-ec-proposed-standard-essential-patents-regulation/">here</a>
and <a href="https://oxfirst.com/insights-&-news/european-commissions-draft-standard-essential-patents-regulation-puts-the-emphasis-on-patent-valuation/">here</a>).
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The US has developed fairly substantial guidance on methods
for FRAND valuation through the Courts, but at present there is no government
position. This collaboration could take a number of forms, one of which may be
a centrally determined valuation approach for FRAND licensing, similar to that
likely under the EC’s SEP proposal. Should this be the direction taken by the
ITA-NIST-USPTO, a range of FRAND valuation approaches are open to them. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We profile three of these: the top-down, comparable
licenses, and incremental ex-ante approaches, but it is worth noting that many
approaches exist. These three have been selected to illustrate the range of
factors which may need to be considered when establishing FRAND royalty rates
and why economic expertise is vital when establishing the value of SEPs and
commensurate FRAND rates. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>The top-down approach<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;">The top-down
approach determines a FRAND royalty rate for the standard as a whole and then
distributes that value among the various patents that read on the standard. The
method then seeks to split the cumulative royalty rate among all SEPs deemed
essential to the standard. This approach conventionally begins with calculating
the total aggregate royalty burden for all patents reading on a particular
standard.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> As such, it
caps the total royalty burden a licensee may have to pay. In such a scenario,
the number of entities holding and asserting SEPs becomes irrelevant as the
maximum royalty burden has been determined in advance. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>The comparable licenses approach<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
comparable license approach aims to determine a FRAND royalty rate with
reference to extant, similarly situated licensing transactions. As a method,
its approach to identify the worth of a licensing rate with reference to other
known rates is quite intuitive. When identifying comparable licenses,
particular attention must be paid to how one establishes comparability and what
one qualifies as a comparable licensing rate. The courts are just one
repository of the guidance. From an economic perspective, it is important the
comparable license is transparent and can be read as a whole; the licensing
package needs to be understood as a whole, and not just the licensing rate.
Careful econometric analysis is therefore employed to derive a FRAND licensing
rate from the licenses deemed comparable. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The incremental
ex-ante approach<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
incremental ex ante approach is concerned with differentiating the value that
the patents bring to the product, as compared to the value that the patents
derive from the act of setting a standard, which naturally imparts a value onto
the SEP. This approach allows a determination of what a willing licensor and
licensee would have paid for the patent(s) before it was recognized as being
essential to a standard. Since royalties are often determined after the
standard setting process is concluded, the patent holder’s bargaining position
at the time of royalty negotiation (ex-post) can be very different from what it
would have been before the standard was set and when alternatives were still
available (ex-ante). This is what this approach seeks to encapsulate.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It is also worthwhile
noting that elements of different approaches may be combined according to the
circumstances of each case, and establishing FRAND licensing rates with a high
degree of confidence often requires </span>utilisation of more than one
approach. For this reason, economic expertise in the valuation of SEPs for
FRAND licensing is essential. <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>OxFirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14098279382291803510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-64566002340512007602023-09-28T12:31:00.001+01:002023-09-29T07:49:19.541+01:00European policies for competition and growth in ICT through regulation of Big Tech, network operators and standard-essential technology licensing<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> <span face="Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Big Tech companies have profited greatly from dominant market positions while riding largely for free over the top of fixed and mobile telecom networks and devices. The entire Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) ecosystem is enabled by a variety of interoperability technologies including 5G cellular, WiFi and HEVC/H.265 video compression that are openly available in published standards and embedded in components and end-products. How much, if anything, should beneficiaries pay for the capabilities upon which their standard-based implementations are built?</span></span></p><p><span face="Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 15px;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span face="Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 15px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG7dvC1NnAym-LqH95eyQDnSL6P4qp07HYWR6D-ksqCU857KzsSyQ714bnOeHMJ1-UjGtNb5hzmt27vFtsGRtmPVBHt8gRwqKRfXn9mw8_V1ZYsJkDRlHoeCtbCat6nLiQodEJns9StAxkBqYSCh6eFC-inMJNwojcHxiuSHzcSGz2IBWVIJZHEZdqf6w/s768/European_Commission.svg_-768x533.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="768" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG7dvC1NnAym-LqH95eyQDnSL6P4qp07HYWR6D-ksqCU857KzsSyQ714bnOeHMJ1-UjGtNb5hzmt27vFtsGRtmPVBHt8gRwqKRfXn9mw8_V1ZYsJkDRlHoeCtbCat6nLiQodEJns9StAxkBqYSCh6eFC-inMJNwojcHxiuSHzcSGz2IBWVIJZHEZdqf6w/s320/European_Commission.svg_-768x533.png" width="320" /></a></span></div><p></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #222222;">There are great expectations that technology and market developments will provide yet more stellar economic growth and improved consumer welfare in ICT with new innovations in Artificial Intelligence (AI), the metaverse (e.g. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)) and the Internet of Things (IoT). This is a high stakes game with some players having fared rather better than others as computing, communications, applications and Internet-based services have advanced over the last couple of decades. Big Tech companies continue growing handsomely to command a large and ever-increasing proportion of total ecosystem revenues, as </span><a href="https://www.rcrwireless.com/20170920/carriers/20170920wirelessanalyst-angle-5g-investment-threatened-by-tech-titans-snatching-financial-growth-from-mobile-operators" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><b>I have noted here before</b></span></a><span style="color: #222222;">.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">European policies to regulate ICT markets in various ways that will redistribute rewards and costs are being formulated following various public consultations and extensive lobbying. Regulation is unquestionably required in data protection, child protection and cyber security, as it is in health and safety. Measures to preserve national security are also required, but excessive restrictions there can be a dubious pretext for over-reach with anti-competitive protectionism. Regulating competition in other ways is also questionable and should only be contemplated where there is clear evidence of market failure or harm to consumers. Reformers should also tread carefully to ensure that remedies don’t do more harm than good through unintended consequences.</p><h2 class="wp-block-heading" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: roboto, sans-serif; line-height: 38px; margin: 30px auto 20px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Three proposed interventions to guide the invisible hand</span></h2><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">In unregulated or lightly regulated markets, competition and growth can develop most dynamically among different players, technologies and business models. Nevertheless, significant interventions are being pursued in ICT where there have been many successes with enormous and widespread market growth and benefit to consumers. A firm’s market dominance, abnormally high growth and profits might or might not result from anticompetitive abuse. Making a determination on that — one way or the other — requires extensive investigations and ties up lots of limited public agency resources. We should be wary of those accused of such abuse when they seek to distract regulators from that contention by claiming it is those in other markets who are causing market failure or harm to competition.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Two major EU interventions have been conceived to reign-in the dominance of Big Tech companies over others with whom they compete or depend. A third intervention—with the pretext of protecting Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) from abusive patent licensing—will perversely have the opposite effect. It bolsters Big Tech and major industrial firms such as car manufacturers against the major value generators in the ICT ecosystem that create the standardized technologies that everyone benefits from using. </p><h2 class="wp-block-heading" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: roboto, sans-serif; line-height: 38px; margin: 30px auto 20px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Gatekeepers and other Core Platform Service competitors</span></h2><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #222222;">America’s Big Tech companies—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft—are deemed to be so big and powerful that they have been </span><a href="https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/digital-markets-act-commission-designates-six-gatekeepers#:~:text=The%20European%20Commission%20has%20designated,Digital%20Markets%20Act%20(DMA).&text=In%20total%2C%2022%20core%20platform,by%20gatekeepers%20have%20been%20designated." style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">identified as “gatekeepers” by the European Commission under its Digital Markets Ac</span><span style="color: #2b00fe;">t</span></b></a><span style="color: #222222;">, as has China’s ByteDance. Gatekeeper designations reflect positions in search, browsers, operating systems and video sharing among other Core Platform Services. The success of these companies is illustrated by those American companies’ combined market value increasing by a half to $9 trillion this year. Prospective regulation could limit the extent to which they own and how they offer and operate complementary services, such as in bundling. Similarly, in the US, </span><span style="color: #0b5394;"><a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/why-is-us-suing-google-antitrust-violations-2023-09-11/" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>Alphabet is being sued by the Department of Justice for abusing its dominant position in search</b></a> </span><span style="color: #222222;">to distort the market, for example, by making Google the default on most smartphones and browsers.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #222222;">It remains to be seen whether regulating gatekeepers will foster more competition, innovation or economic value overall versus other Core Platform Service providers. Figuring out what kinds of structures and behaviors are anti-competitive is difficult in markets where prices are zero for consumers who pay in-kind by being targeted for advertising and who like the simplicity of bundled and integrated offerings. What’s not to like about also getting free deliveries when one subscribes to Amazon Prime Video?</span><span style="color: #0b5394;"> <a href="https://www.economist.com/business/2023/09/12/meet-the-plucky-firms-that-are-beating-big-tech" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>A recent article in the Economist</b></a></span><span style="color: #222222;"> heralds Garmin in fitness trackers, Dropbox in cloud storage and Mercado-Libre in Latin American e-commerce as examples of companies that have succeeded in growing revenues in competition with the Big Tech firms. Market failure and harm is difficult to prove because counterfactuals—in the </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;">but for</em><span style="color: #222222;"> world— cannot be observed. Attempts to block acquisitions by Big Tech companies, manipulate their offerings or even break them up will surely be met with extensive and vigorous legal challenges.</span></p><h2 class="wp-block-heading" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: roboto, sans-serif; line-height: 38px; margin: 30px auto 20px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Network cost sharing</span></h2><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #222222;">Telco industry groups GSMA and European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association (ETNO) have demanded that companies such as those above they depict as Large Traffic Generators (LTGs), and that are sometimes called Large Traffic Originators (LTOs), should pay their “fair share” of the costs to provide broadband Internet access. The</span><b><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/eu-parliament-asks-large-traffic-operators-to-chip-in-on-networks-costs/" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">sender-pays principle</span></a></b><span style="color: #222222;"> is based on a long-standing grievance of large telecom operators that Big Tech companies generate the majority of traffic and reap most of the benefits of the Internet economy while not chipping in with the costs. The European Parliament concurred in a June 2023 resolution:</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #222222;">“that the economic sustainability of telecom networks is essential to achieving the 2030 </span><a href="https://commission.europa.eu/system/files/2023-01/cellar_12e835e2-81af-11eb-9ac9-01aa75ed71a1.0001.02_DOC_1.pdf" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Digital Compass connectivity targets</span></b></a><span style="color: #222222;"> and high-performance connectivity for all citizens within the EU without jeopardizing competition rules; urges the commission to address and mitigate persistent asymmetries in bargaining power as set out by the European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles for the Digital Decade; calls for the establishment of a policy framework where large traffic generators contribute fairly to the adequate funding of telecom networks without prejudice to net neutrality.”</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Most network traffic is video and this proportion continues to increase. Alphabet’s YouTube, Amazon’s Prime Video and ByteDance’s TikTok among others are evidently major originators of network traffic. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #222222;">There is a clear need to keep increasing network capacity to accommodate data traffic growth. According Ericsson’s Mobility Reports, mobile network traffic has doubled every couple of years over the last decade or so. Fixed network traffic has also surged in multiples over recent years. </span><a href="https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/investment-and-funding-needs-digital-decade-connectivity-targets" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">A WIK-Consult study</span></b><span style="color: #4db2ec;"> </span></a><span style="color: #222222;">for the Commission found that €174-200 billion is needed to achieve Europe’s 2030 Connectivity Targets, including 5G coverage of all populated areas and gigabit-speed fiber. </span><a href="https://www.telefonica.com/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2023/05/The-Fair-Share-Proposal-in-Telco.pdf" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">As reported by Compass Lexecon</span></b></a><span style="color: #222222;">, ETNO estimates previous investments of €36-40 billion per year, of which roughly half are traffic related and could have been saved absent the largest content providers’ traffic. According to HSBC, the average return on invested capital for major listed European telcos fell from around 8% in 2012 to around 5% in 2020, with many not achieving their cost of capital. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #222222;">There is disagreement about those investment figures. </span><a href="https://www.project-disco.org/european-union/telcos-biggest-fair-share-myths-debunked-by-new-eu-connectivity-investment-study/" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Opposing interests argue</span></b></a><span style="color: #222222;"> that the correct figures show there is no investment gap, and so subsidization by tech would result in excess profits for big telcos. However, the validity of the sub-par return on invested capital figure above does not appear to have been challenged. Big Tech companies have much higher rates of return.</span></p><div class="rcrwi-726d5fdb6e8f83e81b72935f595cb179 rcrwi-hubspot-article-form" id="rcrwi-726d5fdb6e8f83e81b72935f595cb179" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><div class="rcrwi-hubspot-article-form" id="rcrwi-1697950483" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-align: center;"></div></div><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><a href="https://www.telefonica.com/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2023/05/Compass-Lexecon-Report-on-the-fair-share-debate.pdf" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">A Compass Lexecon research paper concludes there is market failure</span></b></a><span style="color: #222222;">. Its economic analysis shows that, where data usage is unlimited for a fixed price per month, there will be under-investment in access networks. Network operators do not have the incentive to maximize investment where incremental traffic generates no additional revenue. While LTOs invest in infrastructure such as content delivery networks, they have no incentive to increase their own costs by investing in access networks to the benefit their direct competitors. Perversely, Europe’s Open Internet Regulation (i.e. net neutrality requirements) only exacerbates this shortcoming because it prohibits allowing a traffic generator to make payments to prioritize or improve its services versus competitors’. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #222222;">Incremental capacity investments need to generate incremental revenues to provide a return on such investments. There is a very clear and direct causal relationship between the amount of traffic generated and the network capacity required to carry it. For example, 1 Gbps connections that can reliably carry 1 Tbytes per month will be required as </span><b><a href="https://www.rcrwireless.com/20230629/5g-trends/stellar-data-traffic-growth-forecast-to-persist-with-5g-and-fwa-until-at-least-2028" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">video streaming almost entirely displaces multichannel terrestrial, satellite and cable distribution, eventually</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">.</span></b><span style="color: #222222;"> The Big Tech firms can afford to contribute because they derive incremental revenues as the traffic they originate (e.g. as requested by customers) or generate themselves (e.g. advertising) increases. If charges on them are even-handed versus their direct competitors they will all benefit, as will end users and the network operators. There is precedent elsewhere for cost sharing. In Korea, SKBroadband and SKTelecom have ended their dispute with Netflix and instead forged a partnership in which </span><b><a href="https://n.news.naver.com/mnews/article/014/0005074412?sid=105&utm_campaign=18.+september+2023+-+Presse++-+Netflix+ends+three+year+litigation+in+Korea+over+network+usage+costs.+Fair+share+u326336&utm_source=Presse&utm_medium=email" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Netflix service is purchased in a subscription that presumably enables some of the network operator’s costs to be covered</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">.</span></b><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></p><h2 class="wp-block-heading" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: roboto, sans-serif; line-height: 38px; margin: 30px auto 20px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Transparency and predictability in SEP licensing</span></h2><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">While the Commission’s own studies have found no market failure in Standard-Essential Patent (SEP) licensing, proposed legislation requires licensors to register their patents and have some of them checked for essentiality. Proposals also include the setting of aggregate royalties, and mandatory but non-binding conciliation in the determination of Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) royalty rates.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Purported objectives for “improving the SEP licensing system” include providing transparency and predictability—for example, to SMEs with little or no expertise in licensing. However, licensors claim the associated costs and delays will weaken their positions and devalue their SEPs. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Some MNOs lobbied to lower royalties as handset costs increased with the introduction of 3G and then 4G in the 2000s. Mobile phones were significantly morphing from mere voice and text devices to smartphones back then. Today’s Big Tech companies showed little interest in mobile SEP licensing until the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 and of Android in 2008. Many Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) subsequently entered the smartphone market without ownership of SEPs.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #222222;">Comments favoring the Commission’s proposals to regulate royalty rates and licensing are significantly by Apple, automotive manufacturers and trade groups representing implementers and in some cases funded by the above. The current Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU is also a fan. The proposed new ministry of patent counting that will also be responsible for setting royalty rates will be at the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) in Alicante. Major SEP owners and licensors are largely against the proposals. Among the </span><a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/13109-Intellectual-property-new-framework-for-standard-essential-patents/feedback_en?p_id=32054345" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">78 responses to the Commission’s request for feedback on its proposed SEP legislation</span></b></a><span style="color: #222222;">, the only response from a network operator was from Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, which is also an SEP owner.</span><b><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/13109-Intellectual-property-new-framework-for-standard-essential-patents/F3434356_en" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">It also notes</span></a></b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">that “Regulation imposes excessive tasks and costs on SEP holders, even though it is unclear whether SEP holders will receive a fair and adequate return for their efforts.” It seems Europe’s network operators are prioritizing their more pressing concerns about network costs, as indicated above, over getting involved too deeply in the public debate on SEP licensing.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #222222;">Europe has enormous existing assets and potential in development and exploitation of new ICT including 5G Advanced, 6G, IoT and AI. For example, </span><a href="https://www.4ipcouncil.com/features/how-europe-can-build-strengths-seps-reclaim-leadership-cellular-5g-and-6g" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Ericsson and Nokia are global leaders</span></b></a><span style="color: #222222;"> in innovation and standards development for communications and video compression technologies. This needs to be nurtured not undermined. They have each invested around one billion dollars in R&D annually over many years. SEP licensing growth to support further innovation in standards should be fostered not attenuated by regulation. Licensing growth with bilateral and multilateral programs to increase licensing in verticals will encourage development of valuable standard-essential technologies that focus on those verticals. For example, SEP licensing in cars by Avanci has encouraged development of C-V2X technologies in 4G and 5G. Licensing charges at a maximum of $20 for 4G and </span><a href="https://www.avanci.com/vehicle/5gvehicle/" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">$32 for 5G</span></b></a><span style="color: #222222;"> per car are small in comparison to the existential threat posed to incumbent OEMs by them being marginalized in provision of value-added ICT services by Big Tech platforms or by being entirely displaced by new-entrant OEMs in Electric Vehicles (EVs), with alternative distribution and customer relationship models, such as Tesla and BYD. </span></p><h2 class="wp-block-heading" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: roboto, sans-serif; line-height: 38px; margin: 30px auto 20px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Harms, litigation and cures</span></h2><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">It is abundantly clear that Big Tech platforms are commanding the lion’s share of any economic surplus in consumer ICT markets. Network operators, standard-essential technology developers and many implementers are much less profitable or rated far more modestly for expected growth. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">While I doubt examples of growth by Garmin, Dropbox and Mercardo-Libre will be sufficient to placate the European authorities, market failure and harm to other Core Platform Services providers will be difficult to prove. Vigorous legal challenges to any proposed interventions are inevitable.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Elsewhere, intervention is warranted in dysfunctional markets where some companies are flourishing while others upon whom they depend are unable to make the investment and returns required to provide what consumers want and need. Society will benefit socially and economically from ubiquitous fixed and mobile gigabit per second and gigabyte per month broadband. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">However, the EU’s proposed regulation in SEPs will diminish SEP licensing costs to the detriment of the licensors who invest in developing the standard-essential technologies that are openly employed by numerous others. No good will come from biting off the hands that feed the entire ecosystem with new and useful standard-based technologies. There is no sign of harm from the SEP licensing business model. On the contrary, this has substantially enabled the very success that America’s Big Tech companies and the predominantly Asian smartphone OEMs have enjoyed from cellular and video standards with an increasingly mobile-first approach in the provision of many ICT services. In most cases these companies contribute little to the cellular and video technology standards development processes. In technology standards development it is a relatively small number of companies that own and license the vast majority of patents declared standard essential, in comparison to the many more firms that implement them.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, "segoe ui", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "open sans", "helvetica neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">This article was <a href="https://www.rcrwireless.com/20230927/policy/european-policies-for-competition-and-growth-in-ict-through-regulation-of-big-tech-network-operators-and-standard-essential-technology-licensing" target="_blank"><b>originally published by RCR Wireless on 27th September 2023</b></a>.</p>Keith Mallinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06641698749106397850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-69405655368695835002023-09-23T01:07:00.003+01:002023-09-23T01:07:31.677+01:00U.S. Strategy for Standards for Critical and Emerging Tech<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">In May of 2023, the White House published a document titled,
“United States Government National Standards Strategy for Critical and Emerging
Technologies.” The Executive Summary
states:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Strength in standards development has been instrumental to
the United States’ global technological leadership. Standards development
underpins economic prosperity across the country and fortifies U.S. leadership
in the industries of the future at the same time. Bolstering U.S. engagement in
standards for critical and emerging technology (CET) spaces will strengthen
U.S. economic and national security. The U.S. Government has long engaged in
these standards development processes through an approach built on transparency,
private sector and public sector leadership, and stakeholder engagement—a
process that reflects the United States’ commitment to free and fair market
competition in which the best technologies come to market. Government support
for scientific research and development (R&D), an open investment climate,
and the rule of law have also been critical for U.S. standards leadership.
America’s workers, economy, and society have benefited significantly as a
result, as have those of like-minded nations alongside which the United States
has collaborated to forge technological progress. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Today, however, the United States faces challenges to its
longstanding standards leadership, and to the core principles of international
standard-setting that, together with like-minded partners, we have upheld for
decades. Strategic competitors are actively seeking to influence international
standards development, particularly for CET, to advance their
military-industrial policies and autocratic objectives, including blocking the
free flow of information and slowing innovation in other countries, by tilting
what should be a neutral playing field to their own advantage. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The United States must renew our commitment to the
rules-based and private sector-led approach to standards development, and
complement the innovative power of the private sector with strategic government
and economic policies, public engagements, and investments in CET. By
supporting our unrivaled innovation ecosystem and related international
standards development as part of a modern industrial strategy, we can ensure
that CET are developed and deployed in ways that benefit not only the United
States but all who seek to promote and advance technological progress.
Strengthening the U.S. approach to standards development will lead to standards
that are technologically sound, earn people’s trust, reflect our values, and
help U.S. industry compete on a level playing field. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">This strategy outlines how the U.S. Government will
strengthen U.S. leadership and competitiveness in international standards
development, and ensure that the “rules of the road” for CET standards embrace
transparency, openness, impartiality and consensus, effectiveness and
relevance, coherence, and broad participation.</span><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-75891405514968847762023-09-23T01:01:00.003+01:002023-09-23T01:01:42.918+01:00An Excellent Draft Article: "Valuing Social Data"<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Professors Amanda Parsons and Salome Viljoen have published
a draft on SSRN titled, <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4513235">“Valuing Social Data.”</a>
The draft is excellent, provides numerous insights and includes a very
nice literature review. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Here is the abstract: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Social data production is a unique form of value creation
that characterizes informational capitalism. Social data production also
presents critical challenges for the various legal regimes that are
encountering it. This Article provides legal scholars and policymakers with the
tools to comprehend this new form of value creation through two descriptive
contributions. First, it presents a theoretical account of social data, a mode
of production which is cultivated and exploited for two distinct (albeit related)
forms of value: prediction value and exchange value. Second, it creates and
defends a taxonomy of three “scripts” that companies follow to build up and
leverage prediction value and describes the normative and legal ramifications
of these scripts.<br />
<br />
The Article then applies these descriptive contributions to demonstrate how
legal regimes are failing to effectively regulate social data value creation.
Through the examples of tax law and data privacy law, it demonstrates these
struggles in both legal regimes that have historically regulated value
creation, like tax law, and legal regimes that have been newly tasked with
regulating value creation by informational capitalism, like privacy and data
protection law.<br />
<br />
The Article argues that separately analyzing data’s prediction value and its
exchange value may be helpful to understanding the challenges the law faces in
governing social data production and the political economy surrounding such
production. This improved understanding will equip legal scholars to better
confront the harms of law’s failures in the face of informational capitalism,
reduce legal arbitrage by powerful actors, and facilitate opportunities to
maximize the beneficial potential of social data value.</span><b><o:p></o:p></b></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-2598005846017345092023-08-30T19:17:00.001+01:002023-08-30T19:17:35.612+01:00California Institute of Regenerative Medicine Issues Grants<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The California Institute of Regenerative Medicine recently announced
several grants to fund clinical stage research.
Importantly, CIRM has many different requirements than those offered
under the Bayh-Dole Act. The <a href="https://www.cirm.ca.gov/about-cirm/newsroom/press-releases/cirm-invests-50-million-in-clinical-stage-research/">Press Release</a> states:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>South San Francisco, CA</b> – The California
Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the world’s largest institution
dedicated to regenerative medicine, today awarded $50.1 million to fund
clinical-stage research projects aimed at advancing stem cell and gene therapy
treatments for a variety conditions ranging from neurodegenerative diseases and
blood cancers to HIV/AIDS.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The awards will support six projects in the Agency’s <a href="https://www.cirm.ca.gov/researchers/funding-opportunities/clinical-trial-stage-projects/">clinical
program</a> which provides funding for eligible stem cell and gene
therapy-based projects through any stage of clinical trial activity.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The awards include: [Aspera Biomedicines, AcuraStem, Regenerative
Path Technologies and the City of Hope]. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Among the awards is a $12.4 million grant to support
Regenerative Patch Technologies LLC in a Phase 2b clinical trial to evaluate
the safety and efficacy of a retinal pigmented epithelial (RPE) implant. The
implant will be evaluated in patients with geographic atrophy, a late-stage
form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a common condition that can
lead to vision loss in older adults.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The RPE is an important cell layer that supports the retina
and plays a critical role in maintaining vision. In geographic atrophy, RPE
cells break down over time, leading to impaired vision and a loss of
independence.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The stem cell-based implant aims to promote the survival and
function of the retina, protecting the eye from disease progression and
potentially improving vision.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“This award supplies critical funding to support a Phase 2b
clinical trial to achieve our goal of improving vision in patients with
geographic atrophy”, said Jane Lebkowski, PhD, President of Regenerative Patch
Technologies. “We want to thank CIRM for their support of this program.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Geographic atrophy affects more than 8 million people
worldwide and an estimated 1 million people in the United States. There are
currently no approved therapies that are effective in improving vision in
patients with geographic atrophy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“CIRM is proud to continue to fund this groundbreaking stem
cell therapy that has the potential to improve outcomes for the millions of
people suffering from geographic atrophy,” said Maria T. Millan, M.D.,
President and CEO of CIRM. “This investment is follow-on funding to CIRM’s
previous support to develop this therapy. It reflects our commitment to
advancing cutting-edge science and underscores our dedication to addressing the
unmet medical needs of those affected by degenerative diseases.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">This month’s clinical awards include two preclinical projects
and four clinical-stage projects. That brings the number of CIRM-funded
clinical trials to 95. For more information on CIRM’s clinical stage program,
please visit our <a href="https://www.cirm.ca.gov/researchers/funding-opportunities/clinical-trial-stage-projects/">Funding
Opportunities page</a>.</span><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923005810906159036.post-13522556525571488562023-08-30T18:57:00.002+01:002023-08-30T18:57:33.538+01:00U.S. Copyright Notice of Inquiry Regarding AI and Copyright<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The U.S. Copyright Office released today a notice of inquiry
concerning AI and copyright. The Press
Release states:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Today, the U.S. Copyright Office issued a <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-08-30/pdf/2023-18624.pdf">notice
of inquiry (NOI)</a> in the <i>Federal Register</i> on copyright
and artificial intelligence (AI). The Office is undertaking a study of the
copyright law and policy issues raised by generative AI and is assessing
whether legislative or regulatory steps are warranted. The Office will use the
record it assembles to advise Congress; inform its regulatory work; and offer
information and resources to the public, courts, and other government entities
considering these issues.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The NOI seeks factual information and views on a number of
copyright issues raised by recent advances in generative AI. These issues
include the use of copyrighted works to train AI models, the appropriate levels
of transparency and disclosure with respect to the use of copyrighted works,
the legal status of AI-generated outputs, and the appropriate treatment of
AI-generated outputs that mimic personal attributes of human artists.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The NOI is an integral next step for the Office’s <a href="https://www.copyright.gov/ai/">AI initiative</a>, which was <a href="https://www.copyright.gov/newsnet/2023/1004.html">launched</a> in
early 2023. So far this year, the Office has held four public listening
sessions and two webinars. This NOI builds on the feedback and questions the
Office has received so far and seeks public input from the broadest audience to
date in the initiative.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“We launched this initiative at the beginning of the year to
focus on the increasingly complex issues raised by generative AI. This NOI and
the public comments we will receive represent a critical next step,” said Shira
Perlmutter, Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office.
“We look forward to continuing to examine these issues of vital importance to
the evolution of technology and the future of human creativity.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Initial written comments are due by 11:59 p.m. eastern time
on Wednesday, October 18, 2023. Reply comments are due by 11:59 p.m. eastern
time on Wednesday, November 15, 2023. Instructions for submitting comments are
available on the Office’s <a href="https://www.copyright.gov/policy/artificial-intelligence/">website</a>.
Commenters may choose which and how many questions to respond to in the NOI.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .5in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The NOI includes the following
questions: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">General Questions<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>The Office has several general questions about generative
AI in addition to the specific topics listed below. Commenters are encouraged
to raise any positions or views that are not elicited by the more detailed
questions further below.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">1. As described above, generative AI systems have the ability
to produce material that would be copyrightable if it were created by a human
author. What are your views on the potential benefits and risks of this
technology? How is the use of this technology currently affecting or likely to
affect creators, copyright owners, technology developers, researchers, and the
public?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">2. Does the increasing use or distribution of AI-generated
material raise any unique issues for your sector or industry as compared to
other copyright stakeholders?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">3. Please identify any papers or studies that you believe are
relevant to this Notice. These may address, for example, the economic effects
of generative AI on the creative industries or how different licensing regimes
do or could operate to remunerate copyright owners and/or creators for the use
of their works in training AI models. The Office requests that commenters
provide a hyperlink to the identified papers.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">4. Are there any statutory or regulatory approaches that have
been adopted or are under consideration in other countries that relate to
copyright and AI that should be considered or avoided in the United States? How
important a factor is international consistency in this area across borders? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">5. Is new legislation warranted to address copyright or
related issues with generative AI? If so, what should it entail? Specific
proposals and legislative text are not necessary, but the Office welcomes any
proposals or text for review.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Training<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>If your comment applies only to a specific subset of AI
technologies, please make that clear.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">6. What kinds of copyright-protected training materials are
used to train AI models, and how are those materials collected and curated?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">6.1. How or where do developers of AI models acquire the
materials or datasets that their models are trained on? To what extent is
training material first collected by third-party entities (such as academic
researchers or private companies)?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">6.2. To what extent are copyrighted works licensed from
copyright owners for use as training materials? To your knowledge, what
licensing models are currently being offered and used?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">6.3. To what extent is non-copyrighted material (such as
public domain works) used for AI training? Alternatively, to what extent is
training material created or commissioned by developers of AI models?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">6.4. Are some or all training materials retained by
developers of AI models after training is complete, and for what purpose(s)?
Please describe any relevant storage and retention practices.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">7. To the extent that it informs your views, please briefly
describe your personal knowledge of the process by which AI models are trained.
The Office is particularly interested in:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">7.1. How are training materials used and/or reproduced when
training an AI model? Please include your understanding of the nature and
duration of any reproduction of works that occur during the training process,
as well as your views on the extent to which these activities implicate the exclusive
rights of copyright owners.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">7.2. How are inferences gained from the training process
stored or represented within an AI model?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">7.3. Is it possible for an AI model to “unlearn” inferences
it gained from training on a particular piece of training material? If so, is
it economically feasible? In addition to retraining a model, are there other
ways to “unlearn” inferences from training?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">7.4. Absent access to the underlying dataset, is it possible
to identify whether an AI model was trained on a particular piece of training
material?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">8. Under what circumstances would the unauthorized use of
copyrighted works to train AI models constitute fair use? Please discuss any
case law you believe relevant to this question.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">8.1. In light of the Supreme Court's recent decisions in <i>Google</i>
v. <i>Oracle America</i> <sup> </sup>and <i>Andy Warhol Foundation</i> v. <i>Goldsmith,</i><sup>
</sup>how should the “purpose and character” of the use of copyrighted works to
train an AI model be evaluated? What is the relevant use to be analyzed? Do
different stages of training, such as pre-training and fine-tuning,<sup> </sup>raise
different considerations under the first fair use factor? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">8.2. How should the analysis apply to entities that collect
and distribute copyrighted material for training but may not themselves engage
in the training?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">8.3. The use of copyrighted materials in a training dataset
or to train generative AI models may be done for noncommercial or research
purposes. How should the fair use analysis apply if AI models or datasets are
later adapted for use of a commercial nature? Does it make a difference if
funding for these noncommercial or research uses is provided by for-profit
developers of AI systems? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">8.4. What quantity of training materials do developers of
generative AI models use for training? Does the volume of material used to
train an AI model affect the fair use analysis? If so, how?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">8.5. Under the fourth factor of the fair use analysis, how
should the effect on the potential market for or value of a copyrighted work
used to train an AI model be measured? <sup> </sup>Should the inquiry be
whether the outputs of the AI system incorporating the model compete with a
particular copyrighted work, the body of works of the same author, or the
market for that general class of works? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">9. Should copyright owners have to affirmatively consent (opt
in) to the use of their works for training materials, or should they be
provided with the means to object (opt out)?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">9.1. Should consent of the copyright owner be required for
all uses of copyrighted works to train AI models or only commercial uses? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">9.2. If an “opt out” approach were adopted, how would that
process work for a copyright owner who objected to the use of their works for
training? Are there technical tools that might facilitate this process, such as
a technical flag or metadata indicating that an automated service should not
collect and store a work for AI training uses? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">9.3. What legal, technical, or practical obstacles are there
to establishing or using such a process? Given the volume of works used in
training, is it feasible to get consent in advance from copyright owners?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">9.4. If an objection is not honored, what remedies should be
available? Are existing remedies for infringement appropriate or should there
be a separate cause of action?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">9.5. In cases where the human creator does not own the
copyright—for example, because they have assigned it or because the work was
made for hire—should they have a right to object to an AI model being trained
on their work? If so, how would such a system work?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">10. If copyright owners' consent is required to train
generative AI models, how can or should licenses be obtained?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">10.1. Is direct voluntary licensing feasible in some or all
creative sectors?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">10.2. Is a voluntary collective licensing scheme a feasible
or desirable approach? <sup> </sup>Are there existing collective management
organizations that are well-suited to provide those licenses, and are there
legal or other impediments that would prevent those organizations from
performing this role? Should Congress consider statutory or other changes, such
as an antitrust exception, to facilitate negotiation of collective licenses? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">10.3. Should Congress consider establishing a compulsory
licensing regime? <sup> </sup>If so, what should such a regime look like? What
activities should the license cover, what works would be subject to the
license, and would copyright owners have the ability to opt out? How should
royalty rates and terms be set, allocated, reported and distributed? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">10.4. Is an extended collective licensing scheme <sup> </sup>a
feasible or desirable approach? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">10.5. Should licensing regimes vary based on the type of work
at issue?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">11. What legal, technical or practical issues might there be
with respect to obtaining appropriate licenses for training? Who, if anyone,
should be responsible for securing them (for example when the curator of a
training dataset, the developer who trains an AI model, and the company employing
that model in an AI system are different entities and may have different
commercial or noncommercial roles)?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">12. Is it possible or feasible to identify the degree to
which a particular work contributes to a particular output from a generative AI
system? Please explain.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">13. What would be the economic impacts of a licensing
requirement on the development and adoption of generative AI systems?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">14. Please describe any other factors you believe are
relevant with respect to potential copyright liability for training AI models.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Transparency & Recordkeeping<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">15. In order to allow copyright owners to determine whether
their works have been used, should developers of AI models be required to
collect, retain, and disclose records regarding the materials used to train
their models? Should creators of training datasets have a similar obligation?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">15.1. What level of specificity should be required?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">15.2. To whom should disclosures be made?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">15.3. What obligations, if any, should be placed on
developers of AI systems that incorporate models from third parties?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">15.4. What would be the cost or other impact of such a
recordkeeping system for developers of AI models or systems, creators,
consumers, or other relevant parties?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">16. What obligations, if any, should there be to notify
copyright owners that their works have been used to train an AI model?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">17. Outside of copyright law, are there existing U.S. laws
that could require developers of AI models or systems to retain or disclose
records about the materials they used for training?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Generative AI Outputs<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>If your comment applies only to a particular subset of
generative AI technologies, please make that clear.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Copyrightability<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">18. Under copyright law, are there circumstances when a human
using a generative AI system should be considered the “author” of material
produced by the system? If so, what factors are relevant to that determination?
For example, is selecting what material an AI model is trained on and/or
providing an iterative series of text commands or prompts sufficient to claim
authorship of the resulting output? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">19. Are any revisions to the Copyright Act necessary to
clarify the human authorship requirement or to provide additional standards to
determine when content including AI-generated material is subject to copyright
protection?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">20. Is legal protection for AI-generated material desirable
as a policy matter? Is legal protection for AI-generated material necessary to
encourage development of generative AI technologies and systems? Does existing
copyright protection for computer code that operates a generative AI system
provide sufficient incentives?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">20.1. If you believe protection is desirable, should it be a
form of copyright or a separate <i>sui generis</i> right? If the latter, in
what respects should protection for AI-generated material differ from
copyright? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">21. Does the Copyright Clause in the U.S. Constitution permit
copyright protection for AI-generated material? Would such protection “promote
the progress of science and useful arts”? <sup> </sup>If so, how? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Infringement<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">22. Can AI-generated outputs implicate the exclusive rights
of preexisting copyrighted works, such as the right of reproduction or the
derivative work right? If so, in what circumstances?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">23. Is the substantial similarity test adequate to address
claims of infringement based on outputs from a generative AI system, or is some
other standard appropriate or necessary?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">24. How can copyright owners prove the element of copying
(such as by demonstrating access to a copyrighted work) if the developer of the
AI model does not maintain or make available records of what training material
it used? Are existing civil discovery rules sufficient to address this
situation?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">25. If AI-generated material is found to infringe a
copyrighted work, who should be directly or secondarily liable—the developer of
a generative AI model, the developer of the system incorporating that model,
end users of the system, or other parties?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">25.1. Do “open-source” AI models raise unique considerations
with respect to infringement based on their outputs? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">26. If a generative AI system is trained on copyrighted works
containing copyright management information, how does <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/link/uscode/17/1202" target="_blank">17 U.S.C.
1202(b)</a> apply to the treatment of that information in outputs of the
system?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">27. Please describe any other issues that you believe
policymakers should consider with respect to potential copyright liability
based on AI-generated output.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Labeling or Identification<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">28. Should the law require AI-generated material to be
labeled or otherwise publicly identified as being generated by AI? If so, in
what context should the requirement apply and how should it work?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">28.1. Who should be responsible for identifying a work as
AI-generated?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">28.2. Are there technical or practical barriers to labeling
or identification requirements?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">28.3. If a notification or labeling requirement is adopted,
what should be the consequences of the failure to label a particular work or
the removal of a label?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">29. What tools exist or are in development to identify
AI-generated material, including by standard-setting bodies? How accurate are
these tools? What are their limitations?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Additional Questions About Issues Related to Copyright<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">30. What legal rights, if any, currently apply to
AI-generated material that features the name or likeness, including vocal
likeness, of a particular person?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">31. Should Congress establish a new federal right, similar to
state law rights of publicity, that would apply to AI-generated material? If
so, should it preempt state laws or set a ceiling or floor for state law
protections? What should be the contours of such a right?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">32. Are there or should there be protections against an AI
system generating outputs that imitate the artistic style of a human creator
(such as an AI system producing visual works “in the style of” a specific
artist)? Who should be eligible for such protection? What form should it take?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">33. With respect to sound recordings, how does section 114(b)
of the Copyright Act relate to state law, such as state right of publicity
laws? <sup> </sup>Does this issue require legislative attention in the context
of generative AI? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">34. Please identify any issues not mentioned above that the
Copyright Office should consider in conducting this study.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .5in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">It will be very interesting to see
the responses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wonder if AI was used
to help generate the questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am
sure someone will submit AI generated responses to the questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do wonder about moral rights [fn. 38 in the
document]. </span><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0