Jurisprudential Reflections On The Standard Estoppel Of American

The misuse of patent rights in technical standards will produces standard holdup and hinders competition. In the course of setting standard, patentee induces Standard-setting Organization adopt his patented technology in the standard, by giving false promise or concealing his patent right, and then asks standard users for great royalty fee. That's we called "bait-and-switch"or"snake-in-the-grass" in technical standard. In the field of standardization and patent, the United States had been in the forefront of the world. It's regulations of "bait-and-switch" or "snake-in-the-grass" includes Standards-setting Organization's Patent Policy and the antitrust law, but they're both defective. Then, the doctrine of standard estoppel emerged. Under the doctrine of equitable estoppel, if commitment brings reasonable reliance, the commitment should be enforcement. Standard estoppel is the development of equitable estoppel. By misusing of patent rights, patentee gets unfair advantage from standard users. Standard users have reasonable reliance to patentee's promise of waive of rights. They can use standard estoppel as defense, when involved in patent infringement litigation. In the application of the doctrine of standard estoppel, the court should balance the economic characteristics of the standard, the behavior of the standard promulgators and the behavior of the patentee. The standard estoppel of American is important to our legal system. The misuse of patent rights in technical standards brings many problems to us, and we don't have efficient measures to solve them, so we should devote our efforts to transplant this doctrine to our patent law.