An essential patent or standard-essential patent (SEP) is a
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...
that
claims an invention that must be used to comply with a
technical standard
A technical standard is an established Social norm, norm or requirement for a repeatable technical task which is applied to a common and repeated use of rules, conditions, guidelines or characteristics for products or related processes and producti ...
.
Standard-setting organizations (SSOs) normally require their members to agree to license their essential patents on
fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. Determining which patents are essential to a particular standard can be complex.
See also
*
Patent ambush A patent ambush occurs when a member of a standards organization, standard-setting organization withholds information, during participation in development and setting a Technical standard, standard, about a patent that the member or the member's com ...
, a situation in which patents are withheld during development of a proposed standard
*
Patent infringement
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
, the commission of a prohibited act with respect to a patented invention
*
Patent thicket
A patent thicket is "an overlapping set of patent rights" which requires innovators to reach licensing deals for multiple patents. This concept has negative connotations and has been described as "a dense web of overlapping intellectual property ri ...
, a negatively connoted term for an overlapping set of patent rights
* ''
Orange-Book-Standard'', a German decision on the interaction between patent law and technical standards
*
Standardization
Standardization (American English) or standardisation (British English) is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organiza ...
, the process of creating technical standards
References
Further reading and viewing
*
Potential Antitrust Liability Based on a Patent Owner's Manipulation of Industry Standard Setting, ''Proceedings of ABA Antitrust Section Spring Meeting'' (2003) by Janice M. Mueller.
*
Patent Misuse Through the Capture of Industry Standards, 17 ''Berkeley Tech. L.J.'' 623 (2002) by Janice M. Mueller.
*
* {{cite web , last1=Vidal , first1=Kathi , title=Standard essential patent policy and practices: We want to hear from you! , url=https://www.uspto.gov/subscription-center/2022/standard-essential-patent-policy-and-practices-we-want-hear-you , website=www.uspto.gov , access-date=30 September 2023 , date=10 April 2022
Patent law
Standards