FRAND's forever: Standards, patent transfers, and licensing commitments

Indiana Law Journal

Volumn 89, Issue 1, 2014, Pages 231-314

  Kesan, Jay P ^a   Hayes, Carol M ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA CHAMPAIGN   (United States)

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EID: 84893947849     PISSN: 00196665     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (245)

1. Young Adults and Teens Lead Growth Among Smartphone Owners, NIELSEN NEWSWIRE (Sept. 10, 2012), http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2012/young- adults-and-teens-lead-growth-among-smartphone-owners.html.
2. UniV. of Miami Leonard M. Miller Sch. of Med., Wi-Fi/802.11 Standards, MIAMI.EDU, http://it.med.raiami.edu/x275.xml.
3. *16 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 1, 2013).
4. See Eingestellt von Florian Mueller, RIM Loses Arbitration, Has to Agree with Nokia on Royalties or Stop Selling WiFi Products, FoSS PATENTS (NoV. 28, 2012, 11:07 AM), http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/11/rim-loses-arbitration-has- to-agree-with.html.
5. Gen. Instrument Corp. V. Microsoft Deutschland GmbH, Landgericht Mannheim [LG] [Regional Court of Mannheim] May 2, 2012, (Ger.), available at http://www.scribd.com/doc/94523005/Translation-of-Mannheim-20240-Ruling- Motorola-v-Microsoft
6. INT'L TELECOMM. UNION, H.264: ADVANCED VIDEO CODING FOR GENERIC AUDIOVISUAL SERVICES (2013), available at http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-H.264.
7. Microsoft Corp. V. Motorola, Inc., 696 F.3d 872, 879 (9th Cir. 2012). The injunction would have prohibited Microsoft from selling the Xbox 360 or any product incorporating Windows 7 or Windows Media Player 12.
8. The label "PAE" was promoted by the FTC in its 2011 report to distinguish a specific type of non-practicing entity (NPE). FTC, THE EVOLVING IP MARKETPLACE: ALIGNING PATENT NOTICE AND REMEDIES WITH COMPETITION 8 n.5 (2011), available at http://www.ftc.gov/os/2011/03/110307patentreport.pdf.
9. See, e.g., VirnetX Inc. V. Apple Inc., No. 6:10-CV-417, 2013 WL 692652 (E.D. Tex. Feb. 26, 2013)
10. MobileMedia Ideas LLC V. Apple Inc., 890 F. Supp. 2d 508 (D. Del. 2012)
11. Charles Arthur, VirnetX Adds iPhone 5 to New Apple Lawsuit After $368m Trial Win, THE GUARDIAN (NOV. 9, 2012, 1:21 PM), http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/nov/09/apple-virnetx-patent-iphone-5 (noting ongoing litigation)
12. Christina Bonnington, Jurors Say Apple iPhone Infringes on Three Mobile Media Patents, WIRED (Dec. 13, 2012, 3:23 PM), http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/ 2012/12/iphone-infringes-patent/ (quoting Florian Mueller for the premise that MobileMedia is a patent licensing and assertion entity, though it undertakes its activities on behalf of Sony, Nokia, and MPEG-LA).
13. On VimetX's website, the company explicitly states that their "portfolio of intellectual property is the foundation of [their] business model." Gabriel Patent Licensing, VIRNETX, http://virnetx.com/licensing/ patent-licensing-2/. Thus, it is probably not unreasonable to categorize VirnetX as a patent assertion entity.
14. In the United States, these terms are sometimes referred to as "reasonable and nondiscriminatory," or RAND. Judge Posner wrote recently that "the word 'fair' adds nothing to 'reasonable' and 'nondiscriminatory.'" Apple, Inc. V. Motorola, Inc., 869 F. Supp. 2d 901, 911-12 (N.D. 111. 2012). However, because "FRAND" is often used to describe these terms in the United States anyway, and it is how these terms are typically described in analysis elsewhere (including Europe), we use the term FRAND in this report instead of RAND to better encompass the international scope of the discussion. Adopting the acronym "FRAND" might also simplify searches for relevant information, as fewer words in the English language contain the consecutive letters F-R-A-N-D than contain the consecutive letters R-A-N-D.
15. Charles Duhigg & Steve Lohr, The Patent, Used as a Sword, N.Y. TIMES, Oct. 8, 2012, at A1, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/technology/ patent-wars-among-tech-giants-can-stifle-competition.html.
16. Steve Lohr, Smartphone Patent Wars Show the System Works, Patent Chief Says, N.Y. TIMES BITS BLOG (NOV. 20, 2012, 3:25 PM), http://bits.blogs.nytimes. com/2012/11/20/smartphone-patent-wars-show-the-system-works-patent-chief-says.
17. For more discussions about the possible effects of patents and patent litigation on innovation, see Michael A. Heller & Rebecca S. Eisenberg, Can Patents Deter Innovation? The Anticommons in Biomedical Research, 280 Sci. 698 (1998)
18. see also U.S. DEP'T OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVS., GENE PATENTS AND LICENSING PRACTICES AND THEIR IMPACT ON PATIENT ACCESS TO GENETIC TESTS: REPORT OF THE SECRETARY'S ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON GENETICS, HEALTH, AND SOCIETY (2010), available at http://oba.od.nih.gov/oba/SACGHS/reports/SACGHS-patents-report- 2010.pdf ("The Committee also found that patents have been used to narrow or clear the market of existing tests, thereby limiting, rather than promoting availability of testing.").
19. U.S. CONST, art. 1, §8, cl. 8.
20. See Mark A. Lemley, Intellectual Property Rights and Standard-Setting Organizations, 90 CALIF. L. REV. 1889, 1892 (2002) (referencing and contesting the standard economic theory of IP rights, which argues that weaker IP rights will result in decreased innovation).
21. See Herbert Hovenkamp, Antitrust and the Movement of Technology, 19 GEO. MASON L. REV. 1119, 1137 (2012).
22. Carl Shapiro, Navigating the Patent Thicket: Cross Licenses, Patent Pools, and Standard Setting, in 1 INNOVATION POLICY AND THE ECONOMY 119, 119-20 (Adam B. Jaffe, Josh Lerner & Scott Stern eds., 2000), available at http://www.nber.org/chapters/c10778.pdf
23. see also Peter S. Menell, The Property Rights Movement's Embrace of Intellectual Property: True Love or Doomed Relationship?, 34 ECOLOGY L.Q. 713, 752 (2007) ("[T]he cumulative nature of innovation means that almost all innovations are linked to other innovations to some degree.").
24. See Adam Speegle, Note, Antitrust Rulemaking as a Solution to Abuse of the Standard-Setting Process, 110 MICH. L. REV. 847, 848 (2012) (noting that the majority of consumer electronics are "aggregations of independent patented technologies that are packaged together").
25. See John M. Golden, Principles for Patent Remedies, 88 TEX. L. REV. 505, 514 (2010).
26. James Surowiecki, Turn of the Century, WIRED, Jan. 2002, at 85, available at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.01/standards.html.
27. See Stacy Baird, The Government at the Standards Bazaar, 18 STAN. L. & POL'Y REV. 35, 38 (2007) (emphasizing the importance of interoperability in information technology).
28. Robert P. Merges & Jeffrey M. Kuhn, An Estoppel Doctrine for Patented Standards, 97 CALIF. L. REV. 1, 4 (2009) ("Standardization spurs network effects because a program that interoperates with a variety of programs and files is more valuable than one that works only in isolation.").
29. M. Sean Royall, Amanda Tessar & Adam Di Vincenzo, Deterring "Patent Ambush" in Standard Setting: Lessons from Rambus and Qualcomm, 23 ANTITRUST, no. 3, Summer 2009, at 34, 34.
30. Colleen V. Chien & Mark A. Lemley, Patent Holdup, the ITC, and the Public Interest, 98 CORNELL L. REV. 1, 39 (2012).
31. See, e.g., INT'L ELECTROTECHNICAL COMM'N, INT'L ORG. FOR STANDARDIZATION & INT'L TELECOMM. UNION, GUIDELINES FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF THE COMMON PATENT POLICY FOR ITU-T/ITU-R/ISO/IEC (2d ed. 2012), available at http://www.itu.int/ dms-pub/itu-t/oth/04/04/T04040000010003PDFE.pdf.
32. Anne Layne-Farrar, A. Jorge Padilla & Richard Schmalensee, Pricing Patents for Licensing in Standard-Setting Organizations: Making Sense of FRAND Commitments, 74 ANTITRUST L.J. 671, 672 (2007).
33. Compare Id. at 25 (suggesting that the timing of patent applications might indicate bad faith on the part of the applicant), with Anne Layne-Farrar, Innovative or Indefensible? An Empirical Assessment of Patenting Within Standard Setting, INT'L J. IT STANDARDS & STANDARDIZATION RES., July-Dec. 2011, at 1, 13 (noting that the author's analysis of forward citations indicates that only between 10%-30% of patents obtained after a standard is set are actually opportunistic).
34. See, e.g., Microsoft Corp. V. Motorola, Inc., No. C10-1823JLR, 2013 WL 2111217 (W.D. Wash. Apr. 25, 2013) (determining an appropriate FRAND royalty).
35. See, e.g., Microsoft Corp. V. Motorola, Inc., 696 F.3d 872, 876, 878 (9th Cir. 2012).
36. E.g., EUROPEAN TELECOMMS. STANDARDS INST., ETSI Intellectual Property Rights Policy, in ETSI RULES OF PROCEDURE 35, 41 (2011), available at http://www.etsi.org/images/etsi-ipr-policy.pdf (defining "essential" as referring to technical, but not commercial, essentiality).
37. Letter from Joel I. Klein, Acting Assistant Att'y Gen., Antitrust DiV., DOJ, to Gerrard R. Beeney, Sullivan & Cromwell (June 26, 1997) [hereinafter MPEG-LA Letter], available at http://www.justice.gOv/atr/public/busreview/ 215742.pdf.
38. Letter from Joel I. Klein, Assistant Att'y Gen., Antitrust DiV., DOJ, to Garrard [sic] R. Beeney, Sullivan & Cromwell (Dec. 16, 1998) [hereinafter First DVD Letter], available at http://www.justice.g0v/atr/public/busreview/ 2121.pdf.
39. Letter from Joel I. Klein, Assistant Att'y Gen., Antitrust DiV., DOJ, to Carey R. Ramos, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison (June 10, 1999) [hereinafter Second DVD Letter], available at http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/ busreview/2485.pdf.
40. In the initial stages of our research, we received feedback from industry professionals at companies including Google, Microsoft, Research In Motion, and IBM. This collaboration was made possible by our participation in the Symposium on Management of Intellectual Property in Standard-Setting Processes, which was held in October 2012 by the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy at the National Academy of Sciences. Bd. on Sci., Tech. & Econ. Policy, Symposium on Management of Intellectual Property in Standard-Setting Processes Agenda, NATIONAL ACADEMIES, http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/step/PGA- 070838.
41. Compare EUROPEAN TELECOMMS. STANDARDS INST., supra note 54, at 41 (excluding commercial essentiality)
42. with INST, OF ELEC. & ELECS. ENG'RS STANDARDS ASS'N, IEEE-SA STANDARDS BOARD BYLAWS § 6.1 (2012), available at http://standards.ieee. org/develop/policies/bylaws/sb-bylaws.pdf (including commercial essentiality).
43. INST, OF ELEC. & ELECS. ENG'RS STANDARDS ASS'N, supra note 73.
44. Apple, Inc. V. Samsung Elecs. Co., 877 F. Supp. 2d 838, 881 (N.D. Cal. 2012).
45. John Paczkowski, Google Says Some Apple Inventions Are So Great They Ought to Be Shared, ALL THINGS D (July 20, 2012, 3:05 PM), http://allthingsd. com/20120720/google-claims-popularity-has-made-some-apple-patents-de-facto- essentials/.
46. INST, OF ELEC. & ELECS. ENG'RS STANDARDS ASS'N, supra note 73, § 6.1 (emphasis added).
47. E.g., EUROPEAN TELECOMMS. STANDARDS INST., supra note 54, at 35-36 (requiring members to disclose essential patents and commit to licensing essential patents on FRAND terms).
48. FRAND-RF and FRAND terms are often seen as alternatives to one another. In the standards context, parties occasionally cross-license on FRAND-RF terms, as Apple allegedly offered to do if ETSI adopted its design for a new nano-SIM card as essential to a new standard. Eric Slivka, Apple Offers Royalty-Free Patent Licenses to Push Proposed Nano-SIM Standard, MACRUMORS.COM (Mar. 26, 2012, 6:47 AM), http://www.macrumors.com/2012/03/26/apple-offers-royalty-free- patent-licenses-to-push-proposed-nano-sim-standard/.
49. In some cases, SSOs might also treat FRAND-RF licenses as a punitive measure, as in the case of SSOs that include provisions in their IP policies requiring members to license on FRAND-RF terms if they own essential patents that they fail to disclose. E.g., VITA STANDARDS ORG., VSO POLICIES AND PROCEDURES 14 (reV. 2.6 2009), available at http://www.vita.com/home/VSO/vso-pp- r2d6.pdf.
50. See, e.g., AUDIO VIDEO CODING STANDARD WORKGROUP OF CHINA, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS POLICY ch. IV, art. 12 (2008), available at http://www.avs.org. cn/en/ (click on "IPR Policy").
51. *5 (W.D. Wash. Apr. 25, 2013) ("SSOs seek to promote widespread adoption of their standards because the interoperability benefits of standards depend on broad implementation.").
52. E.g., Colleen Chien, Comment to the USPTO: Recordation of Real-Party-in-Interest Information (Jan. 25, 2013), http://www.uspto.gov/ patents/law/comments/rpii-f-chien-130125.pdf.
53. Request for Comments on Eliciting More Complete Patent Assignment Information, 76 Fed. Reg. 72372 (NoV. 23, 2011).
54. E.g., Intellectual Prop. Owners Ass'n's Response to the USPTO "Request for Comments on Eliciting More Complete Patent Assignment Information" (Jan. 23, 2012), http://www.uspto.gov/patents/law/comments/a- ipo-120123.pdf (pointing out that in the case of some organizations, patent prosecution and patent ownership issues may be handled by two separate departments, or perhaps even by two entirely separate sets of outside counsel).
55. Thomas W. Merrill & Henry E. Smith, The Property/Contract Interface, 101 COLUM. L. REV. 773, 805 (2001).
56. See Alan Devlin, Standard-Setting and the Failure of Price Competition, 65 N.Y.U. ANN. SUR V. AM. L. 217, 227 (2009) ("But an SSO's insistence on royalty-free licensing may be undesirable with respect to technological innovation in the long run if other forms of compensation to the patentee are not forthcoming.").
57. Jorge L. Contreras, Fixing FRAND: A Pseudo-Pool Approach to Standards-Based Patent Licensing (Feb. 13, 2013) (unpublished working paper) (on file with authors).
58. See AUDIO VIDEO CODING STANDARD WORKGROUP OF CHINA, supra note 83, at 5-6.
59. AUDIO VIDEO CODING STANDARD WORKGROUP OF CHINA, supra note 83.
60. Compare EUROPEAN TELECOMMS. STANDARDS INST., supra note 54, at 41,
61. with INST, OF ELEC. AND ELECS. ENG'RS STANDARDS ASS'N, supra note 73, § 6.1 (including commercial essentiality).
62. Compare AUDIO VIDEO CODING STANDARD WORKGROUP OF CHINA, supra note 83, at 8 (defining "Licensees" as including "all Members and their Affiliates and all third party implementers of Compliant Portions"),
63. with EUROPEAN TELECOMMS. STANDARDS INST., supra note 54 (not discussing the beneficiary of the FRAND commitment).
64. INST, OF ELEC. & ELECS. ENG'RS STANDARDS ASS'N, supra note 73, § 6.
65. See, e.g., Common Patent Policy for ITU-T/ITU-MSO/IEC, INT'L TELECOMM. UNION (2013), http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/ipr/Pages/policy.aspx ("The detailed arrangements arising from patents (licensing, royalties, etc.) are left to the parties concerned, as these arrangements might differ from case to case.").
66. INST, OF ELEC. AND ELECS. ENO'RS STANDARDS ASS'N, supra note 73, § 6.
67. Intellectual Property Rights, INT'L TELECOMM. UNION (Oct. 26, 2012), http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/ipr/Pages/default.aspx
68. Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in ETSI, EUROPEAN TELECOMMS. STANDARDS INST. (2012), http://www.etsi.org/about/iprs-in-etsi.
69. EUROPEAN TELECOMMS. STANDARDS INST., supra note 54, at 37-38. The approach taken by ETSI, where the SSO reserves a right to scrap the entire standard if a FRAND commitment cannot be obtained, is mostly unique because it is explicitly stated. Some indications suggest that this approach is fairly common in the standard-setting context, but many SSOs do not expressly refer to it in their IPR policies.
70. See INST, OF ELEC. & ELECS. ENG'RS STANDARDS ASS'N, supra note 73, § 6
71. AUDIO VIDEO CODING STANDARD WORKGROUP OF CHINA, supra note 83.
72. See, e.g., Glisson V. Global Sec. Servs., LLC, 653 S.E.2d 85, 87 (Ga. Ct. App. 2007) (finding that continued employment was not sufficient consideration to make a noncompete agreement an enforceable contract).
73. E.g., Research In Motion Ltd. V. Motorola, Inc., 644 F. Supp. 2d 788, 797 (N.D. Tex. 2008) (referring to the FRAND commitments made to IEEE and ETSI as contracts).
74. E.g., EUROPEAN TELECOMMS. STANDARDS INST., supra note 54, at 36 ("FRAND licensing undertakings made pursuant to Clause 6 shall be interpreted as encumbrances that bind all successors-in-interest.").
75. See, e.g., INST, OF ELEC. & ELECS. ENG'RS STANDARDS ASS'N, supra note 73 (permitting narrowly commercially essential patents to be considered SEPs and including patents that are essential to mandatory or optional portions of the standard)
76. EUROPEAN TELECOMMS. STANDARDS INST., supra note 54, at 41 (defining "essential" as referring to patents that would be infringed by efforts to comply with a standard but explicitly excluding the concept of commercial essentiality).
77. E.g., Research In Motion, 644 F. Supp. 2d at 796-98 (examining antitrust and breach of contract claims).
78. *12 (N.D. Cal. May 14, 2012) ("Moreover, both parties agree that Samsung's contractual obligation arising from its FRAND declarations to ETSI at the very least created a duty to negotiate in good faith with Apple regarding FRAND terms.").
79. See Steven J. Pasternak, An Overview of the Development Process, 8 Sw. J.L. & TRADE AM. 1, 19 (2001) (referring to different approaches taken by sellers and purchasers in negotiations).
80. See, e.g., Common Patent Policy for ITU-T/ITU-R/ISO/IEC, supra note 115.
81. *4 (N.D. Cal. NoV. 4, 1999).
82. Georgia-Pacific Corp. V. U.S. Plywood Corp., 318 F. Supp. 1116, 1120 (S.D.N.Y. 1970).
83. Microsoft Corp. V. Motorola Inc., No. C10-1823JLR, 2013 WL 2111217 (W.D. Wash. Apr. 25, 2013)
84. see also Eingestellt von Florian Mueller, A Closer Look at the 207-Page, Landmark FRAND Rate-Setting Decision in Microsoft V. Motorola, FOSS PATENTS (Apr. 28, 2013, 11:49 PM), http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/04/a-closer-look-at- 207-page-landmark.html.
85. See Apple, Inc. V. Motorola, Inc., 869 F. Supp. 2d 901, 913 (N.D. 111. 2012) (referring to this situation as being one of the purposes of FRAND commitments).
86. E.g., Research In Motion Ltd. V. Motorola, Inc., 644 F. Supp. 2d 788 (N.D. Tex. 2008).
87. Paice LLC V. Toyota Motor Corp., 609 F. Supp. 2d 620, 624 (E.D. Tex. 2009).
88. See, e.g., In re Nortel Networks Inc., No. 09-10138(KG), 2011 WL 4831218 (Bankr. D.Del. July 11, 2011).
89. *9.
90. A.C. Aukerman Co. V. R.L. Chaides Constr. Co., 960 F.2d 1020, 1032 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
91. E.g., Globe-Union, Inc. V. Tiegel Mfg. Co, 228 U.S.P.Q. 58, 60 (N.D. Cal. 1985) ("The mere fact that if plaintiff had sued defendant earlier, defendant would have stopped infringing does not constitute actual prejudice under the applicable case law.").
92. Lemley, supra note 19, at 1924 (citing United States V. Univis Lens Co., 316 U.S. 241 (1942)).
93. See, e.g., Wang Labs., Inc. V. Mitsubishi Elecs. Am., Inc., 103 F.3d 1571, 1580 (Fed. Cir. 1997).
94. See Barnes & Noble, Inc. V. LSI Corp., 849 F. Supp. 2d 925, 932 (N.D. Cal. 2012) (noting that fraud prior to issuance and subsequent to issuance can make a patent unenforceable).
95. See Wang Labs. Inc. V. Mitsubishi Elecs. Am., Inc., 103 F.3d 1571, 1580 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (implied license)
96. A.C. Aukerman Co. V. R.L. Chaides Constr. Co., 960 F.2d 1020, 1043 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (equitable estoppel).
97. Because of the nature of SSOs as organizations of competitors, there are sometimes questions about whether the SSOs themselves violate antitrust law. See Lemley, supra note 19, at 1937 (noting the existence of this argument). However, courts typically acknowledge the pro-competitive value of SSOs. See, e.g., Intel Corp. V. Via Techs., Inc., 174 F. Supp. 2d 1038, 1040 (N.D. Cal. 2001) ("Without [technology standards], the industry would balkanize, improvements would slow, and consumers would suffer."). Some scholars note, however, that the risk of violating antitrust law might partially explain why SSOs keep a "hands off' approach to licensing and the interpretation of FRAND. E.g., Layne-Farrar et al., supra note 42, at 678-79.
98. See, e.g., Michael A. Carrier, Unraveling the Patent-Antitrust Paradox, 150 U. PA. L. REV. 761 (2002) (discussing the intersection of patent and antitrust law)
99. James Gould & James Langenfeld, Antitrust and Intellectual Property: Landing on Patent Avenue in the Game of Monopoly, 37 IDEA 449 (1997) (discussing the Clinton administration's approach to antitrust issues in intellectual property).
100. See Broadcom Corp. V. Qualcomm Inc., 501 F.3d 297, 314 (3d Cir. 2007) (holding that patent holdup in the form of unexpected enforcement of a declared essential patent was actionable under antitrust law).
101. Adam Mossoff, A Simple Conveyance Rule for Complex Innovation, 44 TULSA L. REV. 707, 735-36 (2009) (noting the institutional competence concerns).
102. E.g., George S. Cary, Mark W. Nelson, Steven J. Kaiser & Alex R. Sistla, The Case for Antitrust Law to Police the Patent Holdup Problem in Standard Setting, 77 ANTITRUST L.J. 913 (2011)
103. Joshua D. Wright & Aubrey N. Stuempfle, Patent Holdup, Antitrust, and Innovation: Harness or Noose?, 61 ALA. L. REV. 559 (2010).
104. See, e.g., Maurice E. Stucke, Does the Rule of Reason Violate the Rule of Law?, 42 U.C. DAVIS L. REV. 1375, 1375 (2009) (referring to the rule-of-reason standard as turning on a fact-specific inquiry).
105. See Apple, Inc. V. Motorola Mobility, Inc., 886 F. Supp. 2d 1061, 1066 (W.D. Wis. 2012). The Noerr-Pennington doctrine is often understood as being based on the First Amendment. In Apple V. Motorola, the court held that the Noerr-Pennington doctrine applied because Apple's claim about Motorola's anticompetitive conduct arose from Motorola's attempt to enforce its patents in court, and thus the counterclaim was dismissed on summary judgment. Id.
106. Raymond Z. Ling, Note, Unscrambling the Organic Eggs: The Growing Divergence Between the DOJ and the FTC in Merger Review After Whole Foods, 75 BROOK. L. REV. 935, 937 (2010) (noting that "the DOJ and the FTC have shared responsibility for enforcement of the federal antitrust laws").
107. In re Negotiated Data Solutions LLC, FTC File No. C-0510094 (decision and order, Sept. 23, 2008), http://www.ftc.gov/os/caselist/0510094/080122do.pdf.
108. Motorola Mobility LLC and Google Inc.; Analysis of Proposed Consent Order to Aid Public Comment, 78 Fed. Reg. 2398, 2399 (Jan. 11, 2013).
109. See Rambus Inc. V. FTC, 522 F.3d 456 (D.C. Cir. 2008).
110. *3 (N.D. Cal. NoV. 4, 1999) ("The court finds that plaintiff has failed to sufficiently allege injury to competition beyond the impact on plaintiff.").
111. Rambus, 522 F.3d at 465 (citing NYNEX Corp. V. Discon, Inc., 525 U.S. 128).
112. See Apple, Inc. V. Motorola Mobility, Inc., 886 F. Supp. 2d 1061, 1066 (W.D. Wis. Aug. 10, 2012).
113. Vizio, Inc. V. Funai Elec. Co. Ltd., No. CV 09-0174 AHM (RCx), 2010 WL 7762624 (CD. Cal. Feb. 3, 2010).
114. However, agreements or external forces can intervene to make these agreements transfer. For example, in the Nortel bankruptcy proceeding, the court specified that the patents would be transferred subject to agreements with standard-setting organizations. The Department of Justice has also indicated (after an initial investigation) that it would continue to watch Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Research In Motion to ensure that these companies do not use newly acquired SEPs in a way that would be anticompetitive, and that these companies comply with their own promises to be bound by the previous patent owners' promises to SSOs. Press Release, Dep't of Justice, Statement of the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division on Its Decision to Close Its Investigations of Google Inc.'s Acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. and the Acquisitions of Certain Patents by Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Research In Motion Ltd. (Feb. 13, 2012), available at http://www.justice.gov/ atr/public/press-releases/2012/280190.htm.
115. FTC V. Mylan Labs, Inc., 62 F. Supp. 2d 25, 35-37 (D.D.C. 1999) (evaluating the FTC's authority to seek injunctions and disgorgement of profits)
116. see also Edward Cavanagh, Antitrust Remedies Revisited, 84 OR. L. REV. 147 (2005).
117. See Heater V. FTC, 503 F.2d 321, 326 (9th Cir. 1974)
118. see also Peter C. Ward, Restitution for Consumers Under the Federal Trade Commission Act: Good Intentions or Congressional Intentions?, 41 AM. U. L. REV. 1139, 1144 (1992).
119. CPI Inflation Calculator, http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl.
120. Commission Regulation (EC) No. 139/2004, Case No COMP/M.6381, Google/Motorola Mobility Commission Decision Pursuant to Article 6(b)(1) of Council Regulation No 139/2004 [hereinafter Commission Regulation], available at http://ec.europa.eu/competition/mergers/cases/decisions/m6381-20120213-20310- 2277480-EN.pdf.
121. See Rambus Inc. V. FTC, 522 F.3d 456, 463 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (emphasizing that to be actionable, behavior must have an anticompetitive effect on the market, not just an adverse effect on specific competitors).
122. In re Dell Computer Corp., 121 F.T.C. 616 (1996) (consent decree).
123. Vizio, Inc. V. Funai Elec. Co. Ltd., No. CV 09-0174 AHM (RCx), 2010 WL 7762624 (CD. Cal. Feb. 3, 2010).
124. See, e.g., Microsoft Corp. V. Motorola, Inc., 864 F. Supp. 2d 1023 (W.D. Wash. 2012).
125. *14 (N.D. Cal. May 14, 2012) ("[I]t is not plausible that Samsung's FRAND declarations constitute an offer to license.")
126. Samsung Elecs. Co. V. Apple Inc., No. 45629-112011 (Ct. of Milan Jan. 5, 2012) (section specialized in industrial and intellectual property matters)
127. Samsung Elecs. Co. V. Apple Inc., No. UN: BT7610 (District Ct. of The Hague Oct. 14, 2011)
128. see also Gen. Instrument Corp. V. Microsoft Deutschland GmbH, Landgericht Mannheim [Regional Court of Mannheim] May 2, 2012, 1, 38 (Ger.), available at http://www.scribd.com/doc/94523005/Translation-of-Mannheim-20240-Ruling- Motorola-v-Microsoft ("[T]he Patent Statement and Licensing Declaration Form⋯ cannot be understood as a binding license offer to any number of third parties unknown to the Plaintiff, requiring only acceptance by a third party, but as a request to license seekers to submit their own FRAND offers⋯.").
129. Microsoft Corp. V. Motorola, Inc., 864 F. Supp. 2d 1023 (W.D. Wash. 2012).
130. Microsoft Corp. V. Motorola Inc., 696 F.3d 872, 884 (9th Cir. 2012).
131. See, e.g., INST, OF ELEC. AND ELECS. ENG'RS STANDARDS ASS'N, supra note 73, § 6 (stating that IEEE is not responsible for determining if a proposed license is reasonable and nondiscriminatory).
132. *5 (N.D. Cal. May 20, 2013).
133. Microsoft Corp., 864 F. Supp. 2d at 1032.
134. E.g., Gen. Instrument Corp. V. Microsoft Deutschland GmbH, Landgericht Mannheim [Regional Court of Mannheim] May 2, 2012 1 (Ger.), available at http://www.scribd.com/doc/94523005/Translation-of-Mannheim-20240-Ruling- Motorola-v-Microsoft (stating that the ITU Patent Statement and Licensing Declaration is not "a contract to the benefit of third parties.").
135. E.g., Microsoft Corp., 864 F. Supp. 2d 1023.
136. *3-4 (N.D. Cal. NoV. 4, 1999).
137. * 13-14.
138. Microsoft Corp., 864 F. Supp. 2d 1023.
139. Microsoft Corp. V. Motorola, Inc., 854 F. Supp. 2d 993, 1002 (W.D. Wash. 2012) ("As stated above, the court believes that reasonable parties may disagree as to the terms and conditions of a RAND license, leaving the courthouse as the only viable arena to determine the meaning of 'reasonable' under the circumstances. It would be illogical, therefore, to deem it repudiation of one's rights under a policy to file a lawsuit to enforce one's rights under that same policy.").
140. Microsoft Corp., 864 F. Supp. 2d at 1034 ("[T]he court determines that it was not the intent of the contracting parties (Motorola and the IEEE/ITU) to require that implementer of a standard first apply for a license and then negotiate for a license in good faith before Motorola's RAND obligations are triggered.").
141. Ericsson Inc. V. Samsung Elecs. Co., No. 2:06-CV-63, 2007 WL 1202728 (E.D. Tex. 2007).
142. *16-20 (W.D. Wash. Apr. 25, 2013) (applying the Georgia-Pacific factors to FRAND licensing).
143. *18-20.
144. Apple, Inc. V. Motorola, Inc., 869 F. Supp. 2d 901, 913 (N.D. 111. 2012).
145. Rembrandt Techs., L.P. V. Harris Corp., No. 07C-09-059-JRS, 2009 WL 2490873 (Del. Super. Ct. Aug. 14, 2009).
146. *1.
147. Harris is listed as a member of ATSC. ATSC Members, ADVANCED TELEVISION SYS. COMM., http://www.atsc.org/cms/index.php/policies/50-details/146-members.
148. *1.
149. Commission Notice-Guidelines on the Applicability of Article 81 of the EC Treaty to Horizontal Cooperation Agreements, 2001 O.J. (C 003), available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriSerV.do?uri=CELEX:32001Y0106(01):EN: HTML
150. see also Press Release, European Comm'n, Antitrust: Commission Welcomes IPCom's Public FRAND Declaration (Dec. 10, 2009), available at http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release-MEMO-09-549-en.htm.
151. Commission Notice-Guidelines on the Applicability of Article 81 of the EC Treaty to Horizontal Cooperation Agreements, supra note 305.
152. Commission Notice-Guidelines on the Applicability of Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to Horizontal Co-operation Agreements, 2011 O.J. (C 011), available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/ LexUriSerV.do?uri=OJ:C:2011:011:0001:0072:EN:PDF.
153. See Microsoft Corp. V. Motorola, Inc., 696 F.3d 872, 879 (9th Cir. 2012) (discussing a German ruling in Motorola's favor, a jurisdiction that does not allow third-party beneficiaries to enforce a contract).
154. See, e.g., Abigail Lauren Perdue, For Love or Money: An Analysis of the Contractual Regulation of Reproductive Surrogacy, 27 J. CONTEMP. HEALTH L. & POL'Y 279, 286 (2011) ("Furthermore, the contract's enforceability could be challenged because, inter alia, the agreement is unconscionable, illegal, or void against public policy.").
155. See, e.g., Kimberlianne Podlas, Artistic License or Breach of Contract? Creator Liability for Deceptive or "Defective" Documentary Films and Television Programs, 33 LOY. L.A. ENT. L. REV. 67, 85 (2013) ("Fundamentally, a contract is an exchange of promises, consisting of an offer, acceptance, and consideration.").
156. RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF CONTRACTS § 302 (2007).
157. See Benjamin D. Beard, The Purchase Money Security Interest in Inventory: If It Does Not Float, It Must Be Dead!, 57 TENN. L. REV. 437, 463-65 (discussing the evolution of the acceptance of floating liens on present and after-acquired inventory).
158. See Danielle Kie Hart, Contract Formation and the Entrenchment of Power, 41 LOY. U. CHI. L.J. 175, 199 (2009) ("With the exception of reliance and restitution, the rest of contract law is implicated only if a 'traditional contract,' that is, one formed via mutual assent and consideration, exists." (internal footnotes omitted)).
159. E.g., In re Innovatio IP Ventures, LLC, 921 F. Supp. 2d 903, 915-16 (N.D. 111. 2013) (noting that a FRAND obligation may provide defenses that limit available remedies).
160. Jorge L. Contreras, Patent Pledges (Working Paper, Aug. 15, 2013), available at http://papers.ssrn.com/soI3/papers.cfm?abstract-id=2309023.
161. E.g., Janice M. Mueller, Patent Misuse Through the Capture of Industry Standards, 17 BERKELEY TECH. L.J. 623, 659 (2002).
162. See generally Christopher M. Newman, A License Is Not a "Contract Not To Sue": Disentangling Property and Contract in the Law of Copyright Licenses, 98 IOWA L. REV. 1101 (2013) (suggesting that licenses are a property interest)
163. Molly Shaffer Van Houweling, The New Servitudes, 96 GEO. L.J. 885 (2008) (comparing modern licensing practices to servitudes).
164. See, e.g., Spindelfabrik Suessen-Schurr Stahlecker & Grill GmbH V. Schubert & Salzer Maschinenfabrik Aktiengesellschaft, 829 F.2d 1075, 1081 (Fed. Cir. 1987) ("As a threshold matter, a patent license agreement is in essence nothing more than a promise by the licensor not to sue the licensee.")
165. Mark R. Patterson, Must Licenses Be Contracts? Consent and Notice in Intellectual Property, 40 FLA. ST. U. L. REV. 105, 109 (2012) ("This Article argues that the weight of judicial authority and sound policy support a contractual approach to license formation.").
166. DAVID HUME, A TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE 491 (L.A. Selby-Bigge ed., Oxford UniV. Press 1978) (1739).
167. ProCD, Inc. V. Zeidenberg, 86 F.3d 1447, 1450 (7th Cir. 1996) ("[W]e treat the licenses as ordinary contracts⋯.")
168. H. Justin Pace, Note, Anti-Assignment Provisions, Copyright Licenses, and Intra-Group Mergers: The Effect of Cincom V. Novelis, 9 NW. J. TECH. & INTELL. PROP. 263, 267 (2010) ("Copyright and patent licenses are contracts and as such are interpreted according to state law." (emphasis in original)).
169. Siddharth Khanijou, Patent Inequity?: Rethinking the Application of Strict Liability to Patent Law in the Nanotechnology Era, 12 J. TECH. L. & POL'Y 179, 197 (2007).
170. See Lawrence Berger, Promises Respecting the Use of Land, 55 MINN. L. REV. 167, 169 (1970) (discussing the importance of obligations running with the land).
171. See Mark A. Lemley, Property, Intellectual Property, and Free Riding, 83 TEX. L. REV. 1031, 1074-75 (2005) (criticizing analogies to other areas of law because intellectual property law has unique traits).
172. See Jennifer Ying, The Plain Meaning of Section 365(c): The Tension Between Bankruptcy and Patent Law in Patent Licensing, 158 U. PA. L. REV. 1225, 1260 (2010) (describing a patent license as "merely a covenant not to sue for infringement").
173. Henry V. A.B. Dick Co., 224 U.S. 1, 24 (1912) ("As a license passes no interest in the monopoly, it has been described as a mere waiver of the right to sue by the patentee.")
174. see also De Forest Radio Tel. & Tel. Co. V. United States, 273 U.S. 236, 242 (1926) (affirming the above quoted language of Henry).
175. Bloomer V. McQuewan, 55 U.S. (14 How.) 539, 549 (1852) ("The franchise which the patent grants, consists altogether in the right to exclude every one from making, using, or vending the thing patented, without the permission of the patentee. This is all that he obtains by the patent.").
176. See Lee Kovarsky, Note, Tolls on the Information Superhighway: Entitlement Defaults for Clickstream Data, 89 VA. L. REV. 1037, 1079 (2003) (noting that when property law applies, the right is good against the whole world).
177. Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld, Some Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning, 23 YALE L.J. 16, 30 (1913).
178. Fred R. Shapiro & Michelle Pearse, The Most-Cited Law Review Articles of All Time, 110 MICH. L. REV. 1483, 1490 (2012).
179. See Yaniv Heled, Regulatory Competitive Immunities - An Emerging Class of Intellectual Property, at 24 (Dec. 2012) (unpublished manuscript) (on file with authors).
180. *12 (N.D. Cal. May 14, 2012) (noting that the parties explicitly acknowledged that the FRAND commitment creates a "duty to negotiate")
181. *4 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 10, 2012) (indicating that a bad faith initial offer may violate the duty of good faith)
182. Microsoft Corp. V. Motorola, Inc., 864 F. Supp. 2d 1023, 1038 (W.D. Wash. 2012) (noting that negotiations are subject to an implied duty of good faith and fair dealing).
183. Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld, Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning, 26 YALE L.J. 710, 718 (1917).
184. E.g., EUROPEAN TELECOMMS. STANDARDS INST., supra note 54.
185. Records of IEEE Standards-Related Patent Letters of Assurance, INST. OF ELEC. & ELECS. ENG'RS STANDARDS ASS'N, http://standards.ieee.org/about/sasb/ patcom/patents.html.
186. D. Benjamin Barros, Toward a Model Law of Estates and Future Interests, 66 WASH. & LEE L. REV. 3, 8 (2009) (listing types of estates in American property law).
187. Susan F. French, Servitudes Reform and the New Restatement of Property: Creation Doctrines and Structural Simplification, 73 CORNELL L. REV. 928, 928 (1988) ("By using servitudes, land owners can make permanent changes in the default allocations of rights and obligations to their land.").
188. See RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF PROP.: SERVITUDES § 1 Introductory Note (2000).
189. John Walliser, Conservation Servitudes, 13 J. NAT. RESOURCES & ENVTL. L. 47, 66-70 (1997) (discussing notice as an equitable concept in the context of equitable servitudes).
190. RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF PROP.: SERVITUDES § 3.1 (2000).
191. However, not all states have adopted the Restatement's approach. See Christopher D. McEachran, Sometimes Jumping on the Bandwagon is a Good Thing: An Analysis of North Carolina's Prohibition of Transfer Fee Covenants, 89 N.C. L. REV. 2201, 2221 (2011) (noting that North Carolina still applies the "touch and concern" standard).
192. RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF PROP.: SERVITUDES § 7.9 (2000).
193. *9 (Bankr. D.Del. July 11, 2011).
194. Andrew Russell, Comment, The Tenth Anniversary of the Restatement (Third) of Property, Servitudes: A Progress Report, 42 U. TOL. L. REV. 753, 757 (2011) (discussing specific performance and equitable servitudes).
195. E.g., Riverwood Commercial Park, LLC V. Standard Oil Co., 2011 ND 95 ¶¶ 12-17, 797 N.W.2d 770, 776-78 (affirming the district court's conclusion that the existence of an annual payment was more in line with an easement than a license)
196. Smith V. Huston, 251 S.W.3d 808, 815 (Tex. App. 2008) (discussing the creation of an access easement involving a $200 per year charge).
197. RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF PROP.: SERVITUDES § 1.5(1) (2000).
198. See Lee Ann Fennell, Contracting Communities, 2004 U. ILL. L. REV. 829, 893-94 (noting the creation of servitudes based on use privileges in private development communities).
199. RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF PROP.: SERVITUDES § 2.6 cmt. d, illus. 2 (2000).
200. The bylaws of IEEE-SA explicitly state that once a Letter of Assurance is accepted, there is an "encumbrance" that the patent owner must transfer with the patent. INST. OF ELEC. & ELECS. ENG'RS STANDARDS ASS'N, supra note 73, at § 6. However, this approach is still based on contract language and does not mean that a FRAND commitment is automatically considered to be an encumbrance on the SEPs of other SSOs.
201. See John Wiley & Sons, Inc. V. Livingston, 376 U.S. 543, 550 (1964) (noting that "the principles of law governing ordinary contracts would not bind to a contract an unconsenting successor to a contracting party").
202. RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF PROP.: SERVITUDES § 2.15 (2000).
203. see also Willard V. First Church of Christ, Scientist, 498 P.2d 987 (Cal. 1972) (holding that when deeding real property to one person, a grantor may reserve an easement that benefits a third party).
204. RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF PROP.: SERVITUDES §3.1 (2000).
205. E.g., In re Innovatio IP Ventures, LLC, 921 F. Supp. 2d 903 (N.D. 111. 2013) (concerning a PAE that initiated litigation against businesses that provided wireless service for their customers).
206. Rembrandt Tech. LP V. Harris Corp., 2008 WL 4824066 (Del. Super. Ct. Oct. 31, 2008), vacated, 2009 WL 2490873 (Aug. 14, 2009).
207. 12 SAMUEL WILLISTON & RICHARD A. LORD, A TREATISE ON THE LAW OF CONTRACTS § 35:34 (4th ed. 2001).
208. Int'l Paper Co. V. Schwabedissen Maschinen & Anlagen GMBH, 206 F.3d 411, 418 (4th Cir. 2000)
209. *3 (Del. Super. Ct. Oct. 31, 2008).
210. Estimates suggest that only a minority of existing patents are actually licensed, and approximately half of existing patents have been commercialized. Jason Rantanen, Lee Petherbridge & Jay P. Kesan, Debate, America Invents, More or Less?, 160 U. PA. L. REV. PENNUMBRA 229, 242 (2012) (citing studies estimating that between 5%-29% of patents are licensed).
211. JULES L. COLEMAN, RISKS AND WRONGS 68 (1992).
212. Paul G. Mahoney, The Common Law and Economic Growth: Hayek Might Be Right, 30 J. LEGAL STUD. 503, 523 (2001) (concluding that "the strong association between secure property and contract rights and growth is causal, and not simply a consequence of simultaneity").
213. eBay Inc. V. MercExchange, LLC, 547 U.S. 388, 393 (2006).
214. Dan L. Burk, Intellectual Property in the Cathedral, in ACCESS TO INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE: 21ST CENTURY CHALLENGES IN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND KNOWLEDGE GOVERNANCE 5 (Dana Beldiman ed., forthcoming 2013)
215. (noting that before eBay, there was a presumption in the lower courts "in favor of an almost automatic permanent injunction for patent owners who proved their cases against infringers"), available at http://papers.ssrn. com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract-id=2170093 (last modified NoV. 20, 2012).
216. eBay, 547 U.S. at 391 (citing previous ruling in the Federal Circuit, MercExchange LLC V. eBay, Inc., 401 F.3d. 1323, 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2005), which applied that court's "general rule" that in cases of patent infringement, injunctions should issue "absent exceptional circumstances").
217. Jaideep Venkatesan, Compulsory Licensing of Nonpracticing Patentees After eBay V. MercExchange, 14 VA. J. L. & TECH. 26, 27-28 (2009) ("[Injunction requests are often motivated by the leverage that they provide in subsequent licensing negotiations.").
218. NTP, Inc. V. Research In Motion, Ltd., 418 F.3d 1282, 1291 (Fed. Cir. 2005).
219. Tom Krazit, Judge Faces "Reality" in Blackberry Case, CNET NEWS (Feb. 24, 2006, 4:27 PM), http://news.cnet.com/Judge-faces-reality-in- BlackBerry-case/2100-1041-3-6043212.html? (providing a transcript of the judge's remarks to the parties)
220. see also Tom Krazit & Anne Broache, BlackBerry Saved, CNET NEWS (Mar. 3, 2006, 2:27 PM), http://news.cnet.com/BlackBerry-saved/2100-1047-3-6045880. html.
221. eBay Inc. V. MerExchange, LLC, 547 U.S. 388, 393-94 (2006).
222. For criticism of the potentially sweeping effects of the eBay decision, see Mark P. Gergen, John M. Golden & Henry E. Smith, The Supreme Court's Accidental Revolution? The Test for Permanent Injunctions, 112 COLUM. L. REV. 203 (2012).
223. eBay, 547 U.S. at 391.
224. E.g., Paice LLC V. Toyota Motor Corp., 609 F. Supp. 2d 620, 630 (E.D. Tex. 2009) (determining an ongoing royalty by applying the 25% Rule of Thumb, whereby the royalty is initially set at 25% of the profit margin on the product, and then reducing the amount accordingly in light of other factors, yielding a royalty of 1.5% of the value of the infringing part of the product).
225. Paice LLC V. Toyota Motor Corp., 504 F.3d 1293, 1313 n.13 (7th Cir. 2007) (distinguishing the equitable remedy of an ongoing royalty from the grant of a compulsory license).
226. Microsoft Corp. V. Motorola Inc., 696 F.3d 872, 885 (9th Cir. 2012).
227. *9 (N.D. Cal. May 20, 2013).
228. eBay Inc. V. MercExchange, LLC, 547 U.S. 388, 396 (2006) (Kennedy, J., concurring).
229. Guido Calabresi & A. Douglas Melamed, Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Inalienability: One View of the Cathedral, 85 HARV. L. REV. 1089, 1092 (1972). Shapiro and Pearse list this article as the sixth most-cited law review article of all time. Shapiro & Pearse, supra note 355, at 1489.
230. Robert P. Merges, Of Property Rules, Coase, and Intellectual Property, 94 COLUM. L. REV. 2655, 2655 (1994) (referring to injunctions as being "the classic instance of a property rule").
231. U.S. Dep't of Justice & U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, Policy Statement on Remedies for Standards-Essential Patents Subject to Voluntary F/RAND Commitments 6-7 (Jan. 8, 2013), available at http://www.justice.gov/atr/ public/guidelines/290994.pdf.
232. Peter Lee, The Accession Insight and Patent Infringement Remedies, 110 MICH. L. REV. 175, 175 (2011).
233. J.H. Reichman, Legal Hybrids Between the Patent and Copyright Paradigms, 94 COLUM. L. REV. 2432, 2554-55 (1994).
234. Microsoft Corp. V. Motorola, Inc., 696 F.3d 872, 885 (9th Cir. 2012)
235. Apple, Inc. V. Motorola, Inc., 869 F. Supp. 2d 901, 914 (N.D. 111. 2012).
236. eBay Inc. V. MercExchange, LLC, 547 U.S. 388, 393-94 (2006).
237. Spansion, Inc. V. Int'l Trade Comm'n, 629 F.3d 1331, 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2010).
238. See Spansion, Inc., 629 F.3d at 1358 (listing the statutory factors for not granting an exclusion order).
239. eBay, 547 U.S. at 391
240. (citing previous ruling in the Federal Circuit, MercExchange LLC V. eBay, Inc., 401 F.3d. 1323, 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2005), which applied that court's "general rule" that in cases of patent infringement, injunctions should issue "absent exceptional circumstances").
241. Spansion, Inc., 629 F.3d at 1358.
242. Spansion, Inc., 629 F.3d at 1358 (noting the "legislative determination that an injunction is the only available remedy for violations of Section 337").
243. Letter from Michael B. G. Froman, U.S. Trade Rep., to Hon. Irving A. Williamson, Chairman, U.S. Int'l Trade Comm'n. (August 3, 2013), available at http://www.ustr.gov/sites/default/files/08032013%20Letter-1.PDF.
244. Request for Comments on Eliciting More Complete Patent Assignment Information, 76 Fed. Reg. 72372 (NoV. 23, 2011).
245. See Ron Corbett, IP Strategies for Start-up eCommerce Companies in the Post-Dot-Bomb Era, 8 TEX. WESLEYAN L. REV. 643, 649 (2002) ("A strong patent portfolio may signal an attractive buy-out opportunity by entities prospecting for high-technology companies that are considered to be undervalued because of their unused or unrealized IP assets.").