Event Report  |  10/21/2022

Florence Seminar on Standard-Essential Patents

On 6 and 7 October the Florence Seminar on Standard Essential Patents took place. The conference, which was jointly organized by Florence School of Regulation at the European University Institute and the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, offered the opportunity for a lively academic discussion on FRAND licensing and SEP litigation topics. Twenty-two unpublished papers, both legal and economic, were presented and discussed by prominent scholars in the field.

EUI, Badia Fiesolana
EUI, Badia Fiesolana (Photo: Beatriz Conde Gallego)
Impression of the Florence Seminar on Standard-Essential Patents 2022
Impression of the Florence Seminar on Standard-Essential Patents 2022

The authors and co-authors represented more than twenty academic institutions from three continents. Distributed in a plenary session and several parallel ones, the papers covered timely and contentious issues, such as SEP-related jurisdictional and trade conflicts, the existence of hold-out by implementers, the determination of FRAND licensing levels in complex value chains or the merits of different approaches designed to improve SEP-transparency, as well as recent developments in national patent laws. A roundtable with industry representatives helped to link the academic perspective to market realities. The conference ended with a keynote speech by Michael A. Carrier, who did not only provide a solid trans-Atlantic perspective, but insightfully outlined the manifold and demanding challenges SEPs will still pose in future.


Full programme:  Download.