Studies On Antimonopoly Issues Covering Technical Standards

Cisco v. Futurewei is one of the most important IP rights infringement case in China after we entered into WTO. A new rule fetches out from this case, that is, technique patented, patent standardized, standard monopolized. There is much controversy over the relations of technical standards and patent. This article attempts to have a research on antimonopoly issues covering technical standards from a new perspective.In the rapidly evolving climate of the information and communications technologies industry, a trend of development of standard is to combine patents with technical standards. The technical standards is not also covering technique but also covering patent rights, so the standardization organization can grant licenses in the whole world scope. To grant licenses is a kind of high-level intellectual property managing project. It means grant patent technique rather than grant simple technique. Patent technique is the basis of the licensing strategies. The analysis makes clear that standards and patents server different objectives but necessarily have to co-exist in the same industrial and commercial environment, because it can makes great economical interests. But in the same time, the private interest of the patent shall conflicts with the collective interest of the technical standards, because the private character of the patent always arouse misuse of the rights which is the main point of this article. Most of conflicts happened in the stage of establishing technical standards and the stage of implementing technical standards. Based on a respective analysis of them from quoting several important cases in U.S and China, the article consider that most of the antimonopoly issues covering technical standards is the abuse of patent rights. In order to seek balance of the interests of this two sides, a lot of ways can be use, such as IP policies of the standardization organization, compulsive license, antimonopoly law, the right use of patent pool, and break through technical bulwark.