The Standard Setting Process and the European Commission’s Draft Horizontal Guidelines

This brief commentary focuses on the section on Standardization Agreements in the Draft Guidelines (mainly paragraphs 269 – 290). While it is important to honor the intellectual property rights (“IPR”) of participants in the standard-setting process, it is also important that the process is transparent and the members of the standardization agreement are aware of the likely cost of the technical choices when deciding among technologies during the standard-setting process. Also, to promote innovation and economic development (one of the stated policy goals of the Europe 2020 initiative), the standard-setting process should be geared towards identifying the “best in breed” technologies irrespective of the existing market position of the various companies participating in the standard-setting procedure.