We stand ready and willing to share with Brussels officials our 40-plus years of SEP market knowledge and experience in creating fair licensing solutions, writes Sisvel President and CEO Mattia Fogliacco. Please use us as a resource

Last week, MEPs voted narrowly in favour of commencing legal action against the European Commission with the aim of forcing the reopening of the SEP Regulation file. The proposed legislation was withdrawn earlier this year after the Commission found that there was no realistic prospect of the European Council – made up of representatives from each EU member state – reaching a common position that would enable the commencement of the trilogue negotiation process between the Commission, the Parliament and the Council to decide on the regulation’s final form.

A long time coming

Whether individual MEPs cast their votes on the regulation specifically or because of broader concerns about the Parliament’s legislative relationship with the Commission is not known – and doesn’t really matter. We are where we are: at the start of a legal process that is set to take an extended period of time. The case will now have to be argued before the CJEU, which will then consider what it has heard and issue a decision. If it rules in favour of the Parliament, the SEP Regulation could return to the table. A consensus will then have to be reached within the Council before the trilogue can begin and a final version is agreed and implemented.

It is highly unlikely that all of this will happen inside the next five years. Therefore, the best-case scenario is that the regulation will be in place sometime in the early 2030s. Meanwhile, the SEP world could look entirely different from today – after all, it has already evolved since the regulation was introduced in April 2023. This will be thanks to the emergence of multiple new business models developed by entities such as Sisvel, as well as court decisions handed down in Europe and beyond.

If it were to be revived, therefore, the regulation would almost certainly start out life playing catch-up, having been designed for a market that no longer exists and addressing concerns that will have long been mitigated by industry-led licensing solutions. Some might conclude that there are better ways to run a cutting-edge, innovation-based economy.

It’s good to talk

We share the original legislation’s aims of increasing transparency around SEPs, reducing transaction costs and facilitating licence agreements on FRAND terms. After all, these are the principles that underpin everything Sisvel does. However, it is no secret that we opposed the SEP Regulation and welcomed its withdrawal: we felt strongly that the proposals did not advance those aims. Instead, they jeopardised European global leadership in connectivity R&D and standards setting by saddling innovators with a new and burdensome layer of bureaucracy, while potentially imposing additional costs on European SMEs to the benefit of large, often non-European technology implementers.

When the regulation was withdrawn, the Commission also stated that it “will assess whether another proposal should be tabled or another type of approach should be chosen”. With this in mind, we have made very clear that our door is always open to officials to discuss ways to make the licensing of SEPs as transparent and efficient as possible. That offer still stands.

We firmly believe that the transparent pools we run, which comply with the highest standards (those set out by the Commission itself in the Technology Transfer Block Exemption Rules and the recent draft revisions thereto), can play a key role in achieving these goals. Furthermore, we are happy to explain our involvement in recent initiatives such as the WIPO Mediation Pledge for IoT SMEs and to share details of our exciting plans to go even further in delivering market certainty.

Whatever happens now with the SEP Regulation, our message to the Commission and to the Parliament is a simple one: it’s good to talk. Investments in both standards development and standards implementation are needed to guarantee Europe’s technological competitiveness. To create effective SEP policy, therefore, all parts of the market must be given an equal hearing and feel that their concerns are reflected in whatever proposals emerge.

Sisvel is Europe’s largest patent pool operator and has over 40 years’ experience devising solutions to SEP licensing challenges that balance the needs of licensors and licensees. That’s why our programmes are successful. Very few others possess this level of practical knowledge and insight – especially in Europe.

We urge the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council and other European policymakers to use us as a resource and to ask us whatever questions they wish. Sisvel stands ready to play its part in the creation of the balanced European SEP licensing framework that every stakeholder of good faith wants. An email or a phone call is all that’s required to get the process going. Let’s do this.