Most of the draft CFR (DCFR) concerns contract law, yet in Book VI the DCFR deals with another major component of private law which could not be ignored in the work of the Economic Impact Group (EIG). What the DCFR accurately if dryly defines as "noncontractual liability arising out of damage...

Why do we conduct Ex ante Evaluation of Legislation or regulation (EEL)? In the light of economic theories, this paper investigates a series of distinct and sometimes competing rationales or purposes for EEL. They include the mainstream economic rationale, i.e. improving the quality of...

Most technical standards development organizations (SDOs) have adopted internal policies embodying “due process” criteria such as openness, balance of interests, consensus decision making, and appeals. Unlike other aspects of SDO governance, relatively little scholarly research has...

Whilst there is widespread agreement in policy circles that fostering innovation should be a priority, there is far less consensus on what this entails and how to achieve this objective. This lack of consensus is echoed in the academic literature on innovation. In this paper, we seek to...

In dealing with applications for injunctive relief by the holders of FRAND-encumbered SEPs in the course of protracted licensing negotiations, any legal system faces the challenge of reaching the proper balance between predictability for stakeholders and differentiation between possible...

Standardization may allow the owners of standard-essential patents to charge royalty rates exceeding those that would have been negotiated ex ante. In practice, however, standard-setting efforts are often characterized by repeated interaction and complementarities among technologies. These...

This report proposes some recommendations for a robust regulation of digital networks and services in the European Union. In particular, the report recommends: (i) to abandon separate legislative silos for the internet, audiovisual media and electronic communications and replace them with one...

While the traditional literature and the policy statements concerning standardization as such emphasize the benefits of standardization, the intellectual property and competition law literature and policymaking has been more critical of standardization. Intellectual property is relevant, as the...

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the governance of standard development organizations (SDOs), with a particular emphasis on organizations developing standards for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The analysis is based on 17 SDO case studies, a survey of SDO...

In December 2020, the European Commission proposed an ambitious new set of rules, the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”), which could be applicable in 2023 and whose rationale leans heavily on innovation. In many places throughout the proposed DMA recitals, the Explanatory Memorandum included...