Antitrust Risks in Patent Pools and SSOs

Strafford Publications is hosting a live 90-minute telephone conference on avoiding price fixing and exclusionary conduct.  The conference is scheduled for September 23, 2008 from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m Eastern.

Patent owners work together to facilitate interoperability of products through standard setting organizations (SSO) and patent pools.

SSOs help develop industry standards for particular technologies and patent pools offer a package for licensing essential patents to make a standardized product. However, both raise antitrust concerns.

Patent owners received good news when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned the FTC’s ruling in Rambus. Patent owners must still be wary as antitrust authorities in other jurisdictions, including Europe, will likely take a tougher stance toward SSO conduct.

Listen and participate from your telephone as our authoritative panel of antitrust attorneys examines SSOs and patent pools, the current state of the law as it relates to them, the antitrust pitfalls and strategies for structuring them to avoid antitrust violations.

The panel includes:

• Carl W. Hittinger, Partner, DLA Piper, Philadelphia
• Erica S. Mintzer, Counsel, Hogan & Hartson, Washington, D.C.
• Jeffrey Blumenfeld, Partner, Crowell & Moring, Washington, D.C.

More information and registration are available here.