By Judge Wenlian Ding –
There is no doubt that the license fee of Standard Essential Patents (“SEPs”) can be priced by a judge’s ruling. On the one hand, such price determined by a judge’s ruling is difficult to be as accurate and fair as market pricing, while on the other hand, pricing based on the judgment is difficult to be implemented. It is the main path to settle such disputes to facilitate a negotiation between SEP holder and enforcer through fair and effective procedures. The question is how to make the court’s judicial process more conducive to facilitating both parties to sit at the negotiating table. This article conducts a game theory analysis on the injunction application and information disclosure in the negotiations over SEP license fees, and provides suggestions to improve the judicial process for SEP disputes.
