INJUNCTIONS FOR STANDARD-ESSENTIAL PATENTS: JUSTICE IS NOT BLIND

Peter Camesasca, Gregor Langus, Damien Neven, and Pat Treacy

9/09/2015
(Original Publish Date: 5/29/2013)

This article aims to contribute to the debate on the merit of the availability of injunctions for SEPs. We address the perception that the current system contains inadequate protection for licensees against the risk of hold up on the part of SEP owners through the application for injunctions. We provide an overview of court procedures currently in place across key jurisdictions and argue that the risk of hold up is overstated and that serious consideration should be given in the policy debate to the risk of reverse hold up by the licensees before contemplating change. Importantly, our analysis takes into account the possibility of opportunistic behavior by prospective licensees. This feature has been noted before but not explicitly modeled so far.