Business
Ropes & Gray’s podcast series, IP(DC), focuses on developments in intellectual property law from the vantage point of Ropes & Gray’s office on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. In this episode of IP(DC), IP litigation partners Scott McKeown and Matt Rizzolo are joined by antitrust partner Chong Park to address Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) and their potential to complicate the roll-out of 5G-enabled products and infrastructure. The discussion explores risks for SEP licensors pending the FTC v. Qualcomm decision on Fair, Reasonable, and Non-discriminatory (FRAND) SEP licensing, refusal to deal, and compliance with Standard Setting Organization (SSO) obligations. On the implementer side, the discussion walks through patent hold-up and anti-competitive patent pooling practices. Matt and Scott also briefly preview 2020 legislative efforts in the patent space.