Hein Hobbelen & Tone Oeyen, Apr 30, 2012
For some time now, the concept of fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (“FRAND”) has been a hotly debated topic in the antitrust community. Never free of what some may refer to as kafkaesk jargon, in Brussels we even have “FRAND roundtables” and “FRAND workshops.” When advising on the issue, we have noticed that clients may, at first sight, tend to perceive the inclusion of FRAND terms in e.g. IPR license agreements to be too much ofan absolute, strict requirement under EU competition law. This, however, requires nuance.
