Intellectual Property Rights

DG ENTR has commissioned in December 2009 a fact finding Study on the Interplay between Standards and Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) by Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung, München Germany.

The project leader for this study is Prof. Dr. Knut Blind of the Fraunhofer Institut for Open Communication Systems.

This study is aimed at providing a sound factual basis for possible policy development in the area of European standardisation and innovation policy.

It includes the following tasks :

1. Fact-finding, quantification and descriptive analysis of the current situation and trends regarding the inclusion of IPR protected elements in standardisation from an international perspective.
2. Fact-finding, quantification and analysis of the current situation and trends of the economic impact of IPRs included in standards.
3. Fact-finding, quantification and analysis of the current situation and trends regarding actual issues arisen from the introduction of IPR protected elements in standards and their use. These issues shall include situations where consensus in the standards making process was difficult or lacking, use of standards is limited, and in cases of commercial and legal dispute between different stakeholders.
4. Analyse the current situation and trends of IPR policies of governments, of relevant standards organisations and of business, as well as the legal practice of stakeholders in different sectors, economic areas and legal environments; develop an explanation for the variations in type and the recurrence of issues in 3 according to the elements in 4 where appropriate.
5. Following the analysis in 4, identify the main issues to be addressed by private and public stakeholders in order to improve the interplay of standards and IPRs, and propose solutions building on already observed practice.

The conduct of this study will involve during 2010 a number of interviews and surveys which might be carried out under the responsibility of the contractor with stakeholders involved in the elaboration and use of standards.

Stakeholders input will become very important in view of the successful completion of this study.

Stakeholders will be contacted by the contractor for the purpose of this study.

In order to include most relevant data and information and to make sure that the contractor's engagement can be performed in a effective way a feedback to the information request of the Commission's contractor will be highly appreciated.

It will be the contractor's responsibility to observe confidential treatment of information provided.