How should China Deal With the Patent-related Issues in Technical Standardization

Abstract

Technical standardization in the field of information and computer technology becomes gradually prevalent in the high-tech era. As it usually gathers competitors in the relevant industry to discuss future cooperation, private standardization conducted on a voluntary basis has always been a concern in the eyes of antitrust or antimonopoly laws. Meanwhile, since technical standardization inevitably involves patents in its specifications, the wide adoption of the standard tends to be threatened by the ¿patent holdup¿ problem, which is prejudicial to standard adopters and eventually to the public. This paper explores various measures that can be taken for China to ensure procompetitive standardization and to prevent the final standard from being held up by malicious patent holders. Both private SSO IP policies and public contract law, patent law and antimonopoly law are applicable in dealing with the patent-related issues in standardization.