A few recent contributions have claimed that in high-tech industries—where innovation is often cumulative and products include many components which are protected by patents in the hands of many different patent holders—the cost of obtaining all necessary licenses is too high. Some have even...

One of the most intractable competition issues for the European Commission (the “Commission”) over the last ten years has been to define the circumstances in which the licensing conduct or litigation strategy of a standard-essential patent (often referred to as “SEP”) holders amount to...

In a companion note (Antitrust vs. Sector-specific Regulation in Telecom: What Works Best?), we argued that while the full liberalization of telecommunications markets provides scope for relying to a large extent on general antitrust rules and institutions as instruments of economic regulation,...

This short paper responds to the criticisms made by Richard Vary on observations that I have made in one of my papers on the issue of whether, as a result of their FRAND commitment (or their obligations under EU competition law), standard-essential patents (“SEPs”) holders are under an...

This note analyses the competitiveness of different segments of the telecommunications markets in the five countries (United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Chile) shows that those countries that have relied on a proper balance between antitrust and sector-specific regulation...

Among the countries that have fully liberalized their telecommunications sector, some have chosen to rely mainly on sector-specific rules often (but not always) applied by sector-specific institutions, while others have focused mainly on economy-wide antitrust rules and institutions to control...

The creation of a growing number of agencies at the EU level is one of the most significant developments in the administrative structure of the EU. These agencies play a useful role as they allow the Commission to decentralize a number of scientific, technical, or observatory functions to...