FRAND Commitments in Theory and Practice: A Response to Lemley and Shapiro's 'A Simple Approach'

Abstract

We respond to a recent proposal by Profs. Lemley and Shapiro for compulsory binding final-offer (baseball-style) arbitration for disputes over licensing FRAND-commited standards-essential patents. We demonstrate that, contrary to their suggestions, their proposal is not "best practices" for any standards-setting organization and suffers from a number of practical and conceptual problems.