Patents

Why it matters for your business:

Covering novel inventions, including those that are computer-implemented, attaining patent grants can be essential for App Association members to protect their innovations. Further, as SMEs build new products, they may license patented technologies. Finally, App Association members may also be
accused of patent infringements. Because our members rely on a variety of patents, the existence of overly broad patents is an important issue. Being a patent licensee raises concerns about unreasonable licensing practices for many of our members, which is why we advocate for high patent quality and measures that reduce the harassment of SMEs by unreasonable patent licensors.

Your innovations are often built on top of standardized technologies in order to ensure interoperability with existing products and solutions. If you are building or integrating hardware products that incorporate standards, your business likely faces liability related to your use of standard-essential patents (SEPs). Because SEPs are necessary to the successful use of a standard, SEP owners usually have much more leverage over their potential licensees than other patent owners; at the same time, SEP holders volunteer to make access to their SEPs on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms to any willing licensee, and this is a promise on which App Association members should be able to rely. If SEP holders disregard their FRAND commitments, innovators like you are unable to use technical standards and are essentially locked out from competition.

What we advocate for:

Members of the App Association rely on a balanced patent system to protect their ingenuity and to protect them from unfair patent claims. We strongly oppose practices of unreasonable licensing behavior (“patent trolling”) and believe that it is essential to preserve a mechanism to invalidate patents that should never have been granted. Thus, in order to ensure continuous growth of the app economy, SMEs must be able to pursue IP claims affordably and to challenge unreasonable patents. We are a longtime and vocal supporter of the Unitary European Patent that was finally agreed to in 2012 as we believe the patent process should be as streamlined and easy as possible for any size company to complete.

The App Association also works to ensure that a balanced approach is taken to the licensing of SEPs, which, unlike other patents, must be made available to any willing licensee on FRAND terms. Open standards are the foundation for innovation, and SEP owners’ commitment to FRAND licensing is crucial to the success of entrepreneurs. We work to promote reasonable, transparent, and predictable SEP licensing frameworks that advance innovation and make standards accessible to small businesses, consistent with established legal and policy norms in the EU and elsewhere. The App Association is the leading small business advocate before the EC to advance transparent and predictable SEP licensing practices to level the playing field for businesses like yours.

Our work related to patents

We regularly engage with policymakers on relevant IP policy development processes, at the European Parliament, European Commission, and across key EU Member States. Specific to SEPs, the App Association continues to serve as the leading voice for SMEs on SEP law and policy. We created the All Things FRAND website as a repository for judicial cases, administrative cases, and agency guidance on FRAND related issues, and routinely develop regulatory filings and amicus filings for courts on issues relevant to App Association members. The App Association also founded a leading effort to develop SEP licensing guidance, which was released in the summer of 2019. Several ongoing policy development processes, including the EC’s comprehensive review of its competition law guidelines, will be priorities for the App Association moving forward.

CWA 95000: Core Principles and Approaches for Licensing of Standard Essential Patents