Five Reasons Why Patent Disclosure in Standards-Setting Organizations Doesn’t Work (And What to Do Instead)

Brad Biddle

8/19/2026
(Original Publish Date: 5/1/2015)

Patent “hold up” is a risk associated with standard-setting, and requiring or encouraging disclosure of relevant patents by standards developers is one tool used to mitigate this risk. Disclosure has an intuitive appeal and a strong theoretical justification as a method for addressing an informational asymmetry. This paper argues that disclosure simply does not work as a practical matter, however, for a number of reasons. The paper concludes that disclosure is not an effective tool to address patent hold up, and suggests that other tools (such as enhanced “F/RAND” licensing obligations and improved patent valuation methodologies) should be used instead.