BILETA and standards

The BILETA conference was lots of fun in lovely Vienna. More substantively, I found it very helpful preparing my paper on "The place of IP in a world of environmental change". A piece which started out looking at the problems of IP in relation to new climate change technologies and what could be learned from human rights and in particular competition in the fields of health and software turned into a bit of a call for more standards agreement - not where I thought I would end up.

But the uncertainties in relation to when the EU (and more so the US) might require the sharing of technologies for use for their existing purpose - so no new technical development of product (even with the EU Enforcement Guidelines and the Commission Microsoft decision); and the Dutch decision in SK Kassettan (need to request a licence for there to be a competition defence, and a strong suggestion that patent and competition actions should be separate); suggests that competition law will be of little assistance. And although there is a strong interaction between human rights and climate change (as recognised by 2008 and 2009 resolutions), the experience from IP and human rights (resolutions 2000 and 2001, General Comment 2005) suggests that seeing a clash between two fields will not lead to any (at least immediate) action.

SO, if there is a private standard which lots of people join (but not an open standard, in the manner receiving lots of attention just now in the EU Digital Policy Agenda) then, depending on the terms of the licensing structure(s), joining a standard this might be a much more effective way of access to technology being assured. Well, at least until the Rambus, Qualcomm, and Nokia battles regarding disclosure and FRAND arise again... Something to ponder in the weeks ahead.