Last week I mentioned that IIC (the International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law, published by the Max Planck Institute in Munich) had published an editorial by Richard Arnold titled A Jurisdictionally Neutral Approach to SEP/FRAND Disputes?, 57 IIC 613 (2026). The following month’s issue begins with an insightful essay by Barbara Lauriat titled The Global Politics of Standard Essential Patents, 57 IIC 751 (2026). Professor Lauriat’s thesis is that global “SEP policies can become disconnected from national interests.” In support of this thesis, she cites, among other examples, the Brazilian courts’ receptivity to issuing preliminary injunctions in SEP cases, which she says “may be a useful tool for foreign SEP owners," but which may or may not serve the Brazilian economy. She also writes that "identifying SEP policies that will best promote American leadership in standardized technology” is hardly straightforward, with “major players on both sides of the SEP owner-implementer divide”; and she notes that even countries that don’t set global FRAND rates can affect what happens in other jurisdictions by issuing injunctions (an important point that I am glad to see people beginning to mention). Recognizing that what favors national interests one day can harm them the next, and that lobbying can divert policymakers from what may be in the national interest, she calls for “a balanced middle ground.” Recommended!
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