PatCon, IP Chat Channel Sessions on Remedies

1.  PatCon 8:  The Annual Patent Conference takes place next Thursday through Saturday, March 1-3, at the University of San Diego.  On Friday there will be keynotes by Carter Phillips and Joseph Matal, as well as a judges panel, an industry panel, a USPTO economists' panel, and a panel on medical diagnostics.  The academics' sessions follow, with several papers on remedies--including one by Mark A. Lemley, Kent Richardson, & Erik Oliver titled "The Patent Enforcement Iceberg"; Bernard Chao's paper "Lost Profits in a Multicomponent World"(previously mentioned on this blog here); one by Erik Hovenkamp, Norman Siebrasse, and me titled  "Switching Costs, Path Dependence, and Patent Holdup"; an entire panel titled "Patents, ICT, and FRAND Commitments," featuring papers by Guido Noto La Diega, Manveen Singh, Indranath Gupta, and Jorge Contreras; and two sessions on the International Patent Remedies for Complex Products project, at which I will be speaking along with Professors Contreras, Siebrasse, John Golden, Oskar Liivak, and David Taylor.  As the agenda states, "INPRECOMP is an international comparative law project that aspires to establish a descriptive account of patent damages across multiple jurisdictions in North America, Europe and Asia as well as recommendations regarding potential harmonization and future directions in this area of law."  Here is  a link to the conference webpage.  

Alternatively, if you can't make it to PatCon but will find yourself in the vicinity of the Twin Cities on Friday, I recommend checking out the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology's 2018 symposium, "The Legal Landscape of the Internet of Things."   Information is available here.

2.  The IP Chat Channel will be presenting a webinar titled FRAND Litigation After TCL v. Ericsson next Wednesday, February 28, from 2-3 p.m. Eastern Time.  Here is a link, and here is a description:

"At the end of last year, Judge Selna of the U.S. District Court for the Central District California issued a very significant decision in TCL v. Ericsson, a case centering on a license royalty dispute between a major Chinese cell phone maker and Ericsson, the owner of a large number of standard-essential patents (SEPs) for 3G and 4G mobile service.
  

"This decision now joins a handful of other recent influential court decisions in the U.S. and the U.K. that have each devised their own methodology to calculate fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) terms for SEPs.  

"Our panel includes two academic experts on SEPs, both of whom have also practiced law, and a Brussels-based competition lawyer.  They will discuss: 

• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the “top down” approach implemented in the TCL and Unwired Planet decisions vs. the “bottom up” approach of Microsoft v. Motorola?  Is there a consensus emerging? 
• What are the implications of the non-discrimination prong of the TCL decision that says that small players in a market should not have to pay higher royalty rates than big players? 
• How does recent SEP competition policy in Europe differ from that in the U.S. — and what has changed with the recent release of the European Commission’s Communication on Standard Essential Patents? 

"This webinar will help listeners understand where FRAND jurisprudence is heading, a critically important issue for those who care about standards and FRAND.  Judge Selna’s decision is of great interest for the details of how it set the royalty rates for the technology at issue.  It is being compared with an important recent British decision, Unwired Planet v. Huawei, and the earlier U.S. decision, Microsoft v. Motorola. 

Speakers:

• Prof. Jorge Contreras, University of Utah School of Law
• Prof. Thomas Cotter, University of Minnesota School of Law
• Christopher Thomas, Hogan Lovells"