Description

Technical interoperability standards such as Wi-Fi, 4G LTE and USB enable products manufactured by different vendors to work anywhere around the world. But these standards, some of which are covered by thousands of different patents, have given rise to significant global disputes among patent holders and the manufacturers of standardized products. Many of these disputes revolve around the commitments made at standards organizations to license such patents on terms that are “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory” (FRAND). But what do these terms mean, and who will ultimately decide when there is a disagreement?

About The Speaker

Jorge L. Contreras is a Professor of Law at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, and a Senior Fellow of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. His current research focuses, among other things, on the development of technical standards and the use and dissemination of data generated by large-scale scientific research projects. His published work has appeared in scientific, legal and policy journals including Science, Nature, Georgetown Law Journal, North Carolina Law Review, Florida State Law Review, American University Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Antitrust Law Journal, and Journal of Competition Law and Economics. He recently edited the books Patent Pledges: Global Perspectives on Patent Law’s Private Ordering Frontier (Edward Elgar, 2017) and the Cambridge Handbook of Technical Standardization Law (Camb. Univ. Press, 2017) and has been quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Bloomberg, Washington Post, Korea Times and other national and international media outlets.

Professor Contreras served for 13 years as Chair and Co-Chair of the Technical Standardization Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section of Science & Technology Law. He is currently a member of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) Council of Councils, and the Intellectual Property Rights Policy Committee of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). He is a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School (JD) and Rice University (BA, BSEE) and clerked for Chief Justice Thomas R. Philips of the Texas Supreme Court.