Settlement Agreements: The European Perspective

Key points. This note provides a brief consideration of pasttreatment of settlement agreements in Europe and a considerationof the underlying rationale for scrutinizing such agreementsunder EC competition law. It suggests that a reason for lessfocus by the authorities in Europe than in the US is the generalinterest of the parties in keeping the details of such agreementsconfidential, combined with a lack of any obligation to notifythe authorities. Practical significance. Companies should be reminded of thepossible application of the EC rules to patent settlement agreementsat a time when the Commission has shown a renewed willingnessto review conduct relating to IP and when national authoritiessuch as the OFT have reiterated a willingness to get to gripswith conduct that delays generic entry.     

The FTC issues remedy order in the Rambus matter

The FTC ordered compulsory licensing at fixed royalty ratesof the computer memory products developer's SDRAM and DDR SDRAMtechnologies, also ordering Rambus to desist from lying to standard-settingorganizations (SSOs) regarding its patents and patent applications.     

Teacher education and feminism

In this article I argue that recent years have seen a steady “reform” of teacher education. In the latest of a long line of initiatives, teaching is being restructured via a framework of National Professional Qualifications and Standards. These both centrally define the activity of teaching at various stages of the teaching “career” and establish new modes of progression for teachers. I argue that the framework neglects teachers' responsibilities in relation to social justice in ways that are particularly worrying for feminists. In addition, I argue that the masculinist nature of the standards, the managerialist restructuring of the social relations within schools, and the drive to recruit more men into teaching all connect to the international epidemic of concern about the “underachievement” of boys. The article draws evidence from two externally funded projects undertaken with Ian Hextall between 1995–1999.     

Official Discourse

This paper analyses two Official Reports on law and order. They confront legitimation deficits, seeking discursively to redeem them by denial of their material geneses. This denial establishes an absence in the discourse. This absence, the Other, is the silence of a world constituted by material relations whose reality cannot be appropriated by a mode of normative argument which speaks to and from its own self-image via an idealised conception of justice. The paper discusses first the Reports' discursive problems, secondly, the disparate jurisprudential knowledges realised by the texts, and lastly the discursive presentation of these knowledges.     

FRANDly fire: are industry standards doing more harm than good?

Legal context: The role of IP rights in standards; the meaning of the obligationimposed by many standards bodies on essential patent holdersto licence on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (‘FRAND’)terms; the example of IPR policy of the European TelecommunicationsStandards Institute; recent US developments. Key points: Industry standards are of key commercial and technical significance.Yet many standards are currently burdened by litigation betweenessential patent holders and licensees. Such standards bodieshave been slow to give guidance on the meaning of the obligationsimposed on essential patent holders. This article takes theexample of the obligation to licence essential patents on FRANDterms, analysing the obligation in the context of European competitionlaw. The article concludes with some suggestions for pointsfor companies to include in their internal policies on licensingstandards essential patents. Practical significance: The meaning of the obligation to licence on FRAND terms is veryimportant for licensors and licensees alike. This article putsthe obligation in context and discusses the various approacheswhich may be taken in practice.