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Fab to Fabless: Understanding the Process of Chip Manufacturing (Interviews with Semiconductor Industry - Part 2)
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/interviews-with-semi-conductor-industry-professionals-in-taiwan-2
<b>This is the second of a four-part blog series highlighting findings from a small sample of interviews with fabless semiconductor industry professionals in Taiwan. These industry insiders was approached for the intent of understanding expert knowledge on the process of integrated circuit design. This post explores the process of chip manufacturing and the foundry business model. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">See <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/interviews-with-semi-conductor-industry-professionals-in-taiwan" class="external-link">the first blog post here</a>.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Studies have shown that Taiwan's integrated circuit manufacturing sector have shown spatial and industrial knowledge spillover, resulting in "increased information diffusion, interaction and communication, innovation, and intellectual capital.".<a name="_ftnref1"></a> Market research company IC Insights found that Taiwanese and Chinese companies represented five of the eight fastest-growing fabless integrated circuit ("IC") suppliers in 2013.<a name="_ftnref2"></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Marketplace project is looking at the accessibility of networked communication technologies in the mass market within the sub-100 dollar range. This has resulted in a narrowing of the research scope to the mobile phone due to the pervasiveness of the mobile for accessing Internet, as understood by exploring the trends in technology usage models as explored in Part I of this blog post series: <strong>Trends and Changes in Technology (Part I of IV)</strong>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The need to understand the full story of the mobile phone production led CIS to Taiwan to understand the beginnings of the manufacturing process - the development of an integrated chip. The interviewed professionals all represented fabless IC semiconductor design companies which operated via a foundry business model where the actual fabrication is outsourced.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to one expert whose company earned 50% of its revenue from mobile chipsets alone, the process of the mobile phone manufacturing begins at the fabless design stage, where fabless IC design companies design a chip following consultation with the fabricators to specify the mechanical constraints of the process (the size of the die, the minimum size of the wiring line, etc.) to ensure design requirements are met, and to negotiate the costs of production. Another interviewee highlighted that during this design phase, there are three clear goals: 1) Upgrade performance, 2) Reduce cost by integrating features, and 3) Reduce power consumption.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These particular companies provided insight to some of the commonly licensed technology that went into a smartphone chipset. This included the central processing unit (CPU) from ARM Holdings, who in 2010 held 95% of the CPU marketshare in smartphone technology, <a name="_ftnref3"></a> and have only increased since then. One of the interviewed companies also uses the graphics processing unit (GPU) intellectual property from Imagination Technologies, which after Qualcomm had the 2nd largest market share of IP for personal devices in 2013. Qualcomm who owns the most patents to the 3G standard with over 250 licenses in its CDMA portfolio has made considerable revenue gains thus far, but some analysts predict due to a transition into 4G technology without the same dominant 3G portfolio, they will lose their dominant market position. <a name="_ftnref4"></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Having taken into account these IP into the design process, the design is then sent to fabricators such as the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Industry (TSMC) who in 2013 owned at least 50% of the world's global maker share in fabrication,<a name="_ftnref5"></a> and others like the United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) and Global Foundries). According to the interviewee, the fabrication process requires about 2-3 months.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This foundry business model is a result of increased efficiency and division of labour. Fabrication plants require large amounts of investments into manufacturing facilities. According to interviewees, one would have to spend an average of 5-10 billion USD to built a fabrication plant now. Since plants like TSMC exists, semiconductor industries can now focus on their area of expertise, which is design and customer relationship, and optimize their synergistic relationship for gains for all.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">One of the recent revolutionary developments which have contributed to low-cost smartphone manufacturing has been the turnkey solution chipset, which includes the hardware reference design, the printed circuit board, the software, and instructions for how to create a mobile phone. This turnkey solution, amongst other electronic parts, are sent for white box packaging, then shipped to a distributor like WPG Holdings who are the largest electronics distributor in Asia.<a name="_ftnref6"></a> WPG and others will then distribute these chips and other related products to their customers, the smartphone manufacturers. This entire production cue takes about 3-4 months.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The turnkey solution as mentioned before vastly contrasts the traditional manufacturing process of a mobile phone, where a chip could be designed, given to the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) who would then design all the remaining parts. There used to be a very clear division of labour. Now, one interviewee explained, manufacturers will "buy a turnkey solution, open a factory, take a chassis (case), screw it all together, and sell it. This is what's driven the demand, and that's what created this low cost-market."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><br /> According to our interviewees, the low-cost production of this turnkey chip solution is the reason how so many of the phones in the sub-$100 dollar market exist today.</p>
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<p><a name="_ftn1"></a> P.127 of Tsai, Diana H. A. “Knowledge Spillovers and High-Technology Clustering: Evidence from Taiwan’s Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park.” <i>Contemporary Economic Policy</i> 23.1 (2005): 116–128. Print.</p>
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<p><a name="_ftn2"></a> IC Insights. “Taiwanese and Chinese Companies Represented Five of Eight Fastest Growing Top-25 Fabless IC Suppliers in 2013.” <i>IC Insights</i>. N.p., 7 May 2014. Web. 3 Sept. 2014.</p>
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<p><a name="_ftn3"></a> Morgan, Timothy Prickett. “ARM Holdings Eager for PC and Server Expansion.” <i>The Register</i>, Feb. 2011. Web.</p>
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<p><a name="_ftn4"></a> Trefis Team. “Why Qualcomm’s Royalty Rate Will Continue To Decline.” <i>Forbes</i>, 10 June 2014. Web.</p>
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<p><a name="_ftn5"></a> Wang, Lisa. “TSMC Eyes 50% Global Market Share.” 26 Mar. 2014: 13. Print.</p>
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<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/interviews-with-semi-conductor-industry-professionals-in-taiwan-2'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/interviews-with-semi-conductor-industry-professionals-in-taiwan-2</a>
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No publishermaggieAccess to KnowledgePervasive Technologies2014-12-26T12:06:48ZBlog EntryChanging Usage Models: Desktops to Ubiquitous Cloud-Based Mobile Computing (Interviews with Semiconductor Industry - Part 1)
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/interviews-with-semi-conductor-industry-professionals-in-taiwan-1
<b>This is the first of a four-part blog series highlighting findings from a small sample of interviews with fabless semiconductor industry professionals in Taiwan. These industry insiders was approached for the intent of understanding expert knowledge on the process of integrated circuit design. However, the conversations resulted in leanings far beyond that scope. This post explores the trends of personal computing technology, which provides the pretext for the narrowing of the Pervasive Technologies project scope to a focus on the mobile phone. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Since the mid-1990s, the dissemination of information communications technologies (ICTs) has been hailed as the solution to bridging the digital divide. This rationale led to a multitude of programs, including One Laptop per Child, the Aakash tablet, and most recently, Modi's 'Digital India' campaign, to ensure all Indians have a mobile phone by the year 2019.<a name="_ftnref1"></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Pervasive Technologies project looking at Access to Knowledge has come to understand that mobile phone technology have become ubiquitous<a name="_ftnref2"></a>, with 79% of internet users accessing the internet through mobiles in 2014. <a name="_ftnref3"></a> Particularly for low-income consumers, those who do not have access to computing rely on their mobile phones for accessing tools ranging from the common email, text messaging, calling; and the more advanced and revolutionary - mobile banking (e.g. m-PESA), crowd-sourced environmental protection (e.g. SpillMap), and more.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The evolution to the ubiquity of mobile technology was a valuable learning gained from recent interviews in Taiwan with professionals from the fabless semiconductor chip design industry. A senior executive with over 20 years experience in the field provided some insight to trends/changes in personal computing technology upon inquiring about the recent trends and changes within the industry.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">One significant change that has been occurring is the usage model of consumers. Desktops and even laptops are not fully mobile since they cannot be used in one's hands. As broadband have become more pervasive, smartphones and tablets have resulted in new usage models where computing can be done virtually anywhere. People now tend to vale this more than the desktop experience.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The 'cloud' has also changed computing because the performance requirements for PC processors and other technologies no longer have to be as advanced. In addition, there has been a big shift from desktop content creation to mobile computing. This has mostly been catered towards content consumption (e.g. accessing email, viewing photos, using social media, etc.).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As a result of changing usage models and cloud competing, there has been a general industry shift away from computers. The PC market has slowed down, and the smartphone and tablet markets have exploded. They are generally cheeper, don't have as many bugs, and are much more convenient. Previously, the big names were desktop providers HP, and Dell; but now <strong>"there's less sex appeal around it… we're not excited by it.. it's the smartphone that's very exciting"</strong>. The tech revolution has brought to light exciting smartphone brands like HTC, Samsung, Google and Apple.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In addition to big name smartphone brands, smaller, low-cost manufacturers like Xiaomi are developing a new business model through service, or application shopping. Prices of smartphones are continuing to decrease, so manufacturers using this model are looking to sell their hardware with smaller margins, and profit mainly through software. According to Digi-Capital, an investment bank for mobile apps and games, by 2017, mobile apps could reach $70 billion in annual revenue.<a name="_ftnref4"></a> Thus, greater affordability for the physical devices are naturally occurring within the market due to changing business models.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Accessibility of mobile phones through decreased costs are also supplemented by the trend of technology becoming much more open in the past 10-20 years. "One of the biggest challenges in the last 10 years is that you've got open source, you've got open hardware…things like the maker movement….", including Arduino, Linux, and others. There is a general market trend of consumers wanting to know more about their products.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, one interviewee believed it was still much too closed, likening today's lack of openness to selling a vacuum cleaner without the user guide explaining how it works. <strong> "It's basically the same as buying a Hoover for home, and you don't get the user manual. How am I supposed to change the bag inside? They're not going to tell you." </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong> </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">When asked if this demand for more openness will change the industry, he responded: <strong> "There is a demand, there is a lot of demand, but very little supply. There is demand from the outside, and those within the company. We have to convince our departments to be more open. We have to convince the engineers. It's a lot like convincing politicians, there is no immediate reward." </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong> </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Given these trends, it was of one interviewees' belief that increased accessibility of technology through both decreased cost and increased availability may not necessarily lie in the legal environment or the policy sphere, but rather requires patience for the industry to adapt to a changing marketplace. <a name="_ftnref5"></a> <br /> <br /> Understanding the modes and mediums which information, culture, and ultimately <i>knowledge </i>is accessed is fundamental to the Pervasive Technologies research as an Access to Knowledge issue. Thus, getting a grasp on technological trends, and being able to predict upcoming business models was a very valuable learning.</p>
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<p><a name="_ftn1"></a> Guha, Romit, and Anandita Mankotia Mankotia. “PM Modi’s Digital India Project: Government to Ensure That Every Indian Has Smartphone by 2019.” <i>The Economic Times</i> 25 Aug. 2014. Web. 2 Sept. 2014.</p>
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<p><a name="_ftn2"></a> See the research proposal for the Pervasive Technologies project here: http://cis-india.org/a2k/pervasive-technologies-research-proposal.pdf</p>
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<p><a name="_ftn3"></a> “Smartphone Users Worldwide Will Total 1.75 Billion in 2014.” <i>eMarketer</i>. N.p., 16 Jan. 2014. Web. 3 Sept. 2014.</p>
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<p><a name="_ftn4"></a> Takahashi, Dean. “Mobile Apps Could Hit $70B in Revenues by 2017.” <i>VentureBeat</i>. N.p., 29 Apr. 2014. Web. 7 Sept. 2014.</p>
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<p><a name="_ftn5"></a> This will be further explored in the last blog post of this series.</p>
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<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/interviews-with-semi-conductor-industry-professionals-in-taiwan-1'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/interviews-with-semi-conductor-industry-professionals-in-taiwan-1</a>
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No publishermaggieAccess to KnowledgePervasive Technologies2014-12-26T12:08:34ZBlog EntryReview Meeting for the Pervasive Technologies Project
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/review-meeting-for-the-pervasive-technologies-project
<b>The Centre for Internet & Society in partnership with Beijing Normal University Institute for Internet Policy & Law organized a review meeting of the Pervasive Technologies project in Macau on February 20 - 21, 2017. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sunil Abraham, Anubha Sinha, Rohini Lakshane and Vidushi Marda were speakers. Sunil introduced the participants to the Pervasive Technologies project. Anubha Sinha spoke on Intellectual Property in Mobile App Development in India. Vidushi Marda gave a talk on Competition Law and Standard Essential Patents. Rohini Lakshane gave a talk on Patent Landscaping in the Indian Mobile Device Marketplace. The agenda can be <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/files/review-meeting-pt-project.pdf">accessed here</a>.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/review-meeting-for-the-pervasive-technologies-project'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/review-meeting-for-the-pervasive-technologies-project</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgePervasive Technologies2017-03-22T14:25:50ZNews ItemThe two-faced FRAND: Licensing and injunctive relief in ICTs
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/two-faced-frand-licensing-and-injunctive-relief-in-icts
<b>Important takeaways from the Indo-Europe Conference on Building a Sustainable IPR-ICT Ecosystem for Promoting Innovation, held in Bangalore in November 2015. Ericsson and the Indian Cellular Association presented an interesting set of views on FRAND licensing as well as injunctive relief, from seemingly opposite ends of the spectrum.</b>
<p>For the schedule, and more information, visit: <a class="external-link" href="http://www.ict-ipr.in/sipeit/conference">http://www.ict-ipr.in/sipeit/conference</a></p>
<h2><span>Ericsson’s position on patenting </span></h2>
<p dir="ltr"><span>-- Companies file numerous patent applications every year but 95% of all granted patents are never commercialised. </span></p>
<p><span>-- Ericsson manages to commercialise less than 5 percent of its patents.</span></p>
<p><span>-- A patent application could be rejected because it is not inventive or novel enough. Sometimes, a competitor manages to file for or obtain a patent for the same or similar technology a few days before Ericsson. Hence, it becomes prior art and Ericsson is unable to apply for a patent. </span></p>
<p><span>-- Monetising patents is a challenge because the technology they pertain to may not be good enough to be implemented. Either that, or nobody in the market wants the technology. There is no business aspect to it.<strong> </strong></span><strong><span>Thus, patenting is expensive but but filing patents is a trial-and-error activity, which makes patenting financially cumbersome.</span></strong></p>
<p><span>-- Ericsson feels the need to file a lot of patents, so that some of those patents could be useful from a business perspective. The rest are not commercialised.</span></p>
<p><span>-- The number of patents filed are rising in certain countries, but the numbers are misleading. Some patents are of poor quality and/ or unusable for commercialisation.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>-- Ericsson gets approximately 5,000 inventions per year but files patent applications for only around 1,500 to 1,600, as the rest of the inventions do not have a business aspect to it. That is, Ericsson does not believe that the invention has good business potential or that there is little way for the market to adapt to it. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>-- When companies invest heavily on research and development, and when they try to get (what will later become a) standardised technology released into the market, they should get fair returns on investment.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>-- Indian companies need to invest in IPR. They need to do trial-and-error with respect to patenting. Only then, perhaps, some returns will accrue to them from owning patents.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>-- Monetisation is besides selling products. It's a side effect of investment in research and development.</span></p>
<h2><span>Ericsson’s position on FRAND licensing</span></h2>
<p dir="ltr"><span>-- No company apart from non-practising entities (NPEs) make all or most of its money from licensing. Ericsson makes most of its money from its products and not patents. </span></p>
<p><span>-- A large number of companies such as Ericsson have inventors based in India but the patents get registered abroad, [that is, the patents are not filed by the Indian subsidiary of Ericsson].</span></p>
<p><span>-- </span><strong><span>The percentage fee charged for a FRAND license is a low, single-digit number. </span></strong></p>
<p><span>-- It's a wrong conception that FRAND licensing is very expensive and will shut down Indian companies. If there were no FRAND agreements, no Indian company would be able to put out a phone in the market.</span></p>
<p><span>-- It’s a wrong notion that FRAND agreements are prohibiting any company from the market. Indian companies will not be thrown out of the market by FRAND companies or companies that possess a lot of patents. No Indian company would be able to make and sell a phone if FRAND terms didn’t exist.</span></p>
<p><span>-- <strong>Ericsson is called a patent troll because it doesn’t make mobile phones anymore, but Ericsson built the technology it patented [unlike other patent trolls who buy and gather patents].</strong></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>-- Ericsson has entered into more than licensing 100 agreements worldwide. Many of its licensees are repeat licensees.</span></p>
<p id="docs-internal-guid-4f920544-b271-1bd0-cde5-919b2b7c321e" dir="ltr"><span>-- <strong>The average selling price (ASP) of China-made phones sold in India is USD 50. This money goes to China. The ASP of high-end phones elsewhere is USD 250. Thus, a royalty of USD 15, calculated on the sale price of the end product, is not high.</strong></span></p>
<h2><span>Ericsson’s position on SEP litigation in India and injunctions</span></h2>
<p dir="ltr"><span>-- Nobody starts litigation in order to render an injunction in the end. The idea is to get the other party to the table and negotiate reasonable terms.</span></p>
<p><span>-- </span><strong><span>Litigation without injunction is a toothless tiger.</span><span> The 'licensee' has the financial upper hand of not paying the licensor. So the former can keep prolonging negotiations.</span></strong></p>
<p><span>-- When hold-out happens during licensing negotiations, litigation is used as a last resort. Injunctions are one of the possible outcomes of litigation.</span></p>
<p><span>-- India should play the SEP game. 5G development starts in January 2016 and India should try to get a stake in the development. Indian companies should try to get high quality patents.</span></p>
<p><i><span>[<span id="docs-internal-guid-7d58a686-b1b1-3c63-f6ae-d317a187703b">This suggestion seems to be for homegrown Indian companies as Ericsson also stated during the conference that, “A large number of companies such as Ericsson have inventors based in India but the patents get registered abroad”, that is, the patents are not filed by the Indian subsidiary of Ericsson.]</span></span></i></p>
<p style="text-align: center; "><span>*****</span></p>
<h2><span>Indian Cellular Association on injunctive relief, SEPs and FRAND licensing rates<br /></span></h2>
<p dir="ltr"><span> -- When the standard setting process is collaborative, it is not logical to apply injunctive relief. It is against the ethos of the community.</span></p>
<p><span>--Telecommunication was the first industry to create monopolies, that is, standardisation in order to serve the customer better.</span></p>
<p><span>-- [With reference to SEP infringement litigation happening in India], the so-called infringer is not in league/ not competing with anything the patent holder is making and/ or selling.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>-- The Competition Act in India is a wide-ranging law. It is not a restrictive trade practices act or a monopolies act. Patents are out of the purview of competition.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>-- If a rights holder has acquired dominance as a part of the standard setting process, it is undoubtedly dominant. But if the rights holder's market practices are fair, then it is not violating any provisions of the Competition Act.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>-- India has a “demographic dividend”. Legacy patent holders should look at India differently, and consider our purchasing power. If technology has to proliferate, then consumers in India cannot be burdened with the same royalties as the developed world.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>-- We are trying to strengthen the TSDSI, India's indigenous standards development body [so that India can have a stake in international standards development].</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>-- The size of the global smartphone market today [2015] is USD 500 billion; India's mobile phone market is worth USD 16 billion. The mobile phone market share of China is pegged at USD 110 billion.<br /></span></p>
<p id="docs-internal-guid-7d58a686-b24c-352b-bfd3-d6b26ac7a9d8" dir="ltr"><span>-- The mobile phone market in India will be worth USD 100 billion as of the year 2022 or 2023. For SEP royalties that reward the innovation of all the SEP holders, what will be the amount of royalty outflow? If the outflow is USD 500 billion [in the year 2022 or 2023], then the FRAND percentage be 0.5, which is not a single-digit number, unlike what was stated by Ericsson's representative.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>-- In the projected figure of USD 100 billion, <span id="docs-internal-guid-7d58a686-b259-5f5a-3e52-9c4a2f5bf957">USD 30 billion accounts for display, USD 5 billion accounts for Lithium-ion battery, USD 5 billion for communication protocol, and the complete chipset stack for around USD 10 billion. If the FRAND rate were to be determined as a percentage of the price of the smallest practising component of the [finished]</span> device, then it would be, say, 2% of USD 10 billion. If the FRAND rate were to be determined as a percentage of the end product, it would be 0.5% of USD 100 billion. But, <strong>if the FRAND percentage were a single-digit number, which could also be 9, then all the manufacturers except the rights holders would be snuffed out. </strong>China's mobile market is at USD 110 billion now and is projected to be at USD 400 billion in 2022, will be paying around USD 1 billion in total royalty outflows.<span id="docs-internal-guid-7d58a686-b267-9e65-539f-9bacaa7b48df"> </span><span id="docs-internal-guid-7d58a686-b267-9e65-539f-9bacaa7b48df"> </span></span></p>
<p id="docs-internal-guid-4f920544-b2a5-a0f4-a732-f19269164fc5" dir="ltr"><span><span id="docs-internal-guid-7d58a686-b267-9e65-539f-9bacaa7b48df">-- We also need to evaluate macro costs of research and development globally. How many times, how much, and for how many years do we need to reward innovation? What is the right return amount for inventors? All this will come up for serious debate with the patent office, the Competition Commission of India, the companies, and with the ministries. To ensure equitable growth and a level playing field, all these entities need to get involved.</span></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>-- There is deep distrust of rights holders due to opaqueness in their operations. For example, injunctive relief was sought against a small importer in an Indian court. The royalty rate demanded happened to be half of that demanded from another Indian importer in the same court against an interim injunction. The rights holder then claimed that the email sent to the former importer was a mistake and it revised the rates so that it was equal for both importers. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong><span><i>[This seems to be a reference to Ericsson suing Saral Communications for patent infringement in the Delhi High Court around the same time that Micromax complained to the Competition Commission of India alleging abuse of its dominant positon by Ericsson. The interim royalty rates quoted to Saral were half of the rates that Micromax was ordered to pay, rendering Ericsson's conduct discriminatory and in violation of FRAND. Ericsson subsequently claimed that the rates conveyed to Saral via email were a mistake and asked for the same interim royalty rates as it from Micromax. For more details refer to, <a class="external-link" href="http://www.fosspatents.com/2014/03/court-document-reveals-discriminatory.html">Court document reveals discriminatory royalty demands by Ericsson for its wireless patents. </a></i></span></strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong><span><i>This is also an indication that the market practices of certain rights holders are not consistent, which not only results in a trust deficit but prevents the implementation of a harmonised FRAND rate across the world.] <br /></i></span></strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: center; "><span><span>****</span></span></p>
<h2><span><span>Injunctive relief and FRAND licensing in Europe</span></span></h2>
<p><span>-- According to the German Patent Act, there is automatic injunction as a consequence of patent infringement. No injunctive relief is granted for SEPs anymore in Germany, if certain conditions are fulfilled by the willing licensee.</span></p>
<p><span>-- Long-standing provisions exist in Germany for calculating royalties when multiple patents and multiple patent holders exist. FRAND licensing for one patent is useless. There should be FRAND for the whole complex. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>-- As per the Huawei decision of the European Court of Justice, dated 16 July 2015, a willing licensee can make an offer for the price it wishes to pay to use a patent under the condition that it deposits an amount in the bank as a security for the licensor. Then the licensor cannot enforce the injunction anymore.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: center; "><span>****<br /></span></p>
<h2><span>Open data in patenting </span></h2>
<p><span>If the data available with patent offices across the world is made publicly accessible by the respective governments in a way that it is possible to search, understand, and visualise it, then there could be an explosion in innovation.</span></p>
<h2><span>The trade-off between access and innovation</span></h2>
<p dir="ltr"><span>Inexpensive phones of sub-standard quality break down or stop working sooner than good quality phones. This also destroys incentives for innovators who want to bring high quality phones into the market. So the inexpensive, low-quality phones is a trade-off between having access to mobile phones today and experiencing the fruits of innovation tomorrow. <strong>The Hatch Waxman Act in the US addresses this issue by allowing imitators to come into the economy through an authorised mechanism, which also restores some incentives for innovation.</strong></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>The tradeoff is also addressed better by implementing an evidence-based approach instead of a one-size-fits-all solution. Some regions require an emphasis on access. In other places that do not lack access due to their geographical location and clusters of innovators, IPRs can be implemented more strictly. Such a segmented approach to regions and product-markets can be crafted into policy.</span></p>
<h2><span>The challenge of harmonisation</span></h2>
<p dir="ltr"><span>Denmark does not have a dedicated intellectual property office. Work on IP is integrated in the government offices for trade, growth, economy, and so on. IPR is strongly interlaced with competition law in the country. <strong>Similarly, the Department of Telecom, Department of Health, the Indian Patent Office and the Competition Commission of India should work in tandem to avoid conflict in the way they address cases and issues.</strong></span></p>
<h2 dir="ltr"><span> </span><span>Patenting for universities</span></h2>
<p><span>Indian university do not carry out patenting as much as their counterparts in other countries. The DieTY has schemes for supporting patent filing by universities and academic institutions. </span></p>
<p><span>Number of patents granted annually to:</span></p>
<p><span>Xingua University, China: 1,000</span></p>
<p><span>MIT, United States: 4,000</span></p>
<p><span>IIT and IISC, India: Between 100 and 200</span></p>
<h2><span>Technology areas and number of SEPs in Europe</span></h2>
<p id="docs-internal-guid-7d58a686-b1b4-a37d-f2ae-7182f21bda20" dir="ltr"><span>Telecom via public network: 4,284</span></p>
<p><span>IT and Internet: 534</span></p>
<p><span>Audio/ video systems, coding, et cetera.: 221</span></p>
<p><span>Security, cryptography, biometrics: 182</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>(Source: <span id="docs-internal-guid-7d58a686-b1b5-2260-14d7-cc444e9011c9">Competition Policy Brief, June 2014, Issue 8, Standard Essential Patents, European Commission)</span></span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: center; "><span><span>***</span></span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left; "><span><span><i>All comments in square brackets and italics by the author.</i><br /></span></span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/two-faced-frand-licensing-and-injunctive-relief-in-icts'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/two-faced-frand-licensing-and-injunctive-relief-in-icts</a>
</p>
No publisherrohiniPervasive Technologies2016-03-16T02:37:02ZBlog EntryConference on Standards Settings Organizations (SSO) and FRAND, NLSIU
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/conference-on-standards-settings-organizations-sso-and-frand-nlsiu
<b>Rohini Lakshané attended the Conference on Standards Settings Organizations (SSO) and FRAND held at NLSIU, Bengaluru on March 21 and 22, 2015. It was organised by the MHRD Chair on Intellectual Property Rights, Centre for Intellectual Property Rights and Advocacy (CIPRA), National Law School of India University, Bengaluru in association with Intel Technology India. This post is a compilation of notes from the conference.</b>
<p><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/conference-on-standards-setting-organizations-frand-schedule" class="external-link">Programme Schedule </a></p>
<table class="grid listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Significant Takeaways</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: justify; ">
<ul>
<li>It is anti-competitive to seek to exclude competitors from the market by seeking injunctions on the basis of SEPs, if the licensee is willing to take a license on FRAND terms.</li>
<li>In these circumstances, the seeking of injunctions can distort licensing negotiations and lead to unfair licensing terms, with a negative impact on consumer choice and prices. -- EU Competition Policy Brief, Issue 8, June 2014.</li>
<li>This is a very important issue for India as it thinks about how it can attract foreign investments. India has a unique opportunity to learn from these lessons from around the globe and craft India-specific solutions. India has the intellectual capability and the institutions capable of crafting these solutions, and in doing that we can support Make In India.</li>
<li>India needs to be mindful about what is happening in the [South Asian] region. China has moved aggressively to try to curb FRAND abuse. The People's Court in China ruled in Huawei vs. InterDigital that for 2G, 3G, and 4G patents, the license fees of royalties should not exceed 0.019% of the actual sale price.</li>
<li>Apple also stated that Ericsson was calculating royalties on the sale price of the iPhone or iPad, whereas the royalty should be calculated on the value of the baseband chip that runs this technology in the mobile device. If such litigation occurs in India, what would be India's position? If a building block contains the technology pertaining to a patent, then royalty should be calculated on the smallest possible patent practising unit and not the entire product.</li>
<li>The government of India has adopted a royalty free (RF) approach to licensing open standards.</li>
<li>Non-essential claims are excluded from disclosure. Pending patent applications are not.</li>
<li>Only 16% patents declared as SEPs are actually SEPs, according to a study.</li>
<li>The Delhi High Court has passed interim orders restraining the CCI from deciding these cases. Our appeal to the courts is that these patent infringement lawsuits should not be viewed in isolation. They should not be viewed as merely contractual issues between the licensor and the licensee. They should be seen in the context of their economic effects and their adverse effect on competition. The CCI should be enabled to deal with such cases.</li>
<li>Matheson: The phrase "compulsory license" sends a shiver down every corporate's spine every time it is used. International experience is that the judicial system has been the only forum where we have been able to have due process to enable us to construct cases properly in order to explain to the judge or to the jurors how the system works. That has produced very sensible solutions to this problem. Handing it off to the government to institute a compulsory license wouldn't be fair to the SEP holders.</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<hr />
<h3>SSOs and FRAND: Licensing issues</h3>
<h3></h3>
<h3>John Matheson, Director of Legal Policy (Asia Pacific), Intel</h3>
<p><b>The role of licensing policy</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Ensuring market access</li>
<li>Standards often depend on patented technology, which is accessed through the <i>Promise to License </i>on FRAND terms.</li>
<li>It is equally critical to ensure that standards can be implemented without unfair legal games.</li>
<li>It is essential to prevent patent hold-up.</li>
<li>Reasonable compensation</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Patent holders remain entitled to fair compensation and benefit from the proliferation of their technologies via standardisation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Why FRAND?</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A FRAND commitment embodies certain fundamental principles that have been recognised widely by the courts and regulators.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The fundamental purpose of a FRAND commitment is widespread adoption of the standard.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Because of the peculiar nature of SEPs, the process is open to abuse.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A FRAND commitment is aimed at preventing patent holders from exploiting a hold-up value and extracting unreasonable royalties and concessions that could otherwise follow from being in a very unique position. Often, the holders of the IP have a single solution to an interoperability or connectivity conundrum that technology is facing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Why are SEP license negotiations different from Non-SEP ones?</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the context of non-SEPs, one may be negotiating to obtain a license to a patent for a particular feature. If the licensor is being difficult, one can discard the feature to include something else. In a competitive market, this negotiation is focused on the value of the invention to be licensed. Thus one can redesign to avoid a particular claim and, in turn, avoid injunction.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On the other hand, it is necessary to either obtain a license for or infringe an SEP to manufacture the mobile device. There is no workable alternative or workaround to obtaining a license for the desired technology. With the threat of an injunction looming over the negotiations, the prospective licensee is under pressure to obtain a license. So the market negotiations for SEPs and non-SEPs are very different. One-way negotiations raise the possibility of a patent hold-up, and abuse of the standard implementer.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">IP policies inevitably involve compromise.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Common areas of misunderstanding include:</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>
<p>Valuations or meaning of "reasonable". Valuations of IP under consideration.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Injunctive relief or exclusion orders</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Discrimination or refusal to license</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Patent transfer (It requires a continuation of the FRAND commitment, and shouldn't get differential treatment in the IP policy.)</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Competition authorities in the US and EU have asked SSOs to reconsider policies to reduce ambiguity in the context of these areas of misunderstanding.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The ex-ante or the incremental value of the SEPs before the standard is set needs to be understood. The SSOs look at several different ways to solve a connectivity problem. The patent owners bring their patents into the standards body and claim that theirs is the best way to solve that problem. The market and consumers want an uncomplicated solution which works and is as cheap as possible. In many cases, there is one single winner, simply because we need one solution. In exchange for being the winner, the FRAND discipline is quid pro quo.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">European Commission's response to two different patent lawsuits:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the Samsung and Motorola cases, the Commission clarifies that in the standardisation context where the SEP holders have committed to:</p>
<ol>
<li>License their SEPs</li>
<li>Do so on FRAND terms</li>
</ol>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; ">It is anti-competitive to seek to exclude competitors from the market by seeking injunctions on the basis of SEPs, if the licensee is willing to take a license on FRAND terms.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In other words, if there is a bona fide commitment on the part of the licensee to agree to that test, then it is anti-competitive to seek an injunction.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; ">In these circumstances, the seeking of injunctions can distort licensing negotiations and lead to unfair licensing terms, with a negative impact on consumer choice and prices. -- EU Competition Policy Brief, Issue 8, June 2014.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Anyone who needs access to connectivity or needs interoperability requires to get a SEP license, and if that license is required to be obtained within a time limit, it almost -- by definition -- is not going to work. Patent licenses take years to negotiate, and they're incredibly complex. For example, a patent policy may offer up to 12 months to agree on a license, but that is not the way the market works. So we cannot expect policies that put forth time limits to work in the SEP arena. What we can expect is that the implementers make a bona fide commitment to seek a license.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Motorola vs. Microsoft, Germany:</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Motorola sought injunctive relief against Microsoft in Germany. Microsoft moved its distribution centre from Germany to the Netherlands. This resulted in loss of jobs, relocation costs ($11.6 million), and annual increased operating costs of $5 million for Microsoft.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Samsung vs. Apple, Germany</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Similarly, on the basis of one patent, a temporary injunction was granted on the sale of the Apple iPad and iPhone. Apple was forced to agree to terms it didn't want to agree to, so that the sale of its products would resume.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; ">This is a very important issue for India as it thinks about how it can attract foreign investments. India has a unique opportunity to learn from these lessons from around the globe and craft India-specific solutions. India has the intellectual capability and the institutions capable of crafting these solutions, and in doing that we can support Make In India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">SEP holders that make FRAND commitments should not be allowed to obtain injunctions against alleged infringers, except in limited circumstances. This formula has been adopted by the IEEE, which has solved this problem. India has the opportunity to leapfrog a lot of patent litigation by adopting the IEEE test.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Learn from what happened with Microsoft in Germany. What kind of message do you want to send to the foreign community about investing in India? Do you want to use the scare tactics of injunctions or do you want to adopt a policy that will avoid litigation?</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; ">India needs to be mindful about what is happening in the [South Asian] region. China has moved aggressively to try to curb FRAND abuse. The People's Court in China ruled in <i>Huawei vs. InterDigital</i> that for 2G, 3G, and 4G patents, the license fees of royalties should not exceed 0.019% of the actual sale price.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Reasonable Compensation Considerations</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Royalty based on the smallest unit that practices the standard.</li>
<li>Technical value of patented technologies vs. alternatives.</li>
<li>Overall royalty that could reasonably charged for all SEPs.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Non-discrimination</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A commitment to license every implementer of the relevant standard.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Transfer</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">FRAND commitments follow the transfer of a patent to subsequent proprietors.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Dr. Krishna Sirohi, Impact Innovator, GISFI, President, I2TB</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As per the Make in India programme, we have to achieve zero imports by 2020. Product development in India by Indian companies will happen with collaborative research and development and IPR sharing through licenses. We are looking at national capacity building through product development and patent uses.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Global Information and Communication Technology Forum for India (GISFI)</b> is a standards setting body involved with standardisation and research. It is a telecommunications standards development body (TSDO) set up with the approval of the DoT. It has peer relationships with ITU, OMA, TTC and a bunch of other SDOs. Internet of Things (IoT), mobility and security are its three major research programmes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">GISFI is working towards defining 5G in India. The 5G standardisation theme in India is called WISDOM (Wireless Innovative System for Dynamic Operating Mega Communications). GISFI is considering the perspective of the Indian user, the network capability, the network architecture, network development and the Indian revenue model, strategic and special purpose networks, inclusive growth, and network security.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, some India-specific aspects such as illiteracy and lack of basic civic infrastructure need to be considered in the standardisation process.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>GISFI plans and stages for 5G definition and adoption</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Stage 1 (2014-2018): </b> National agenda for strategic research, innovation and experimentation</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Focus on Digital India and Make in India programmes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Stage 2 (2016-2019): </b> Standardisation</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Stage 3 (2017-2021): </b> Product Development</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Stage 4 (2019-2023): </b> Early Development</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Technical understanding required for IPR issues</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>
<p>Enhancement applicable to general scenarios</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Traffic capacity</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Cell coverage</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Edge cell performance</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Intercell interference</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Network congestion</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Mobility</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Energy consumption</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>Enhancements targeting new use cases</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>machine-type communication</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>national security</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>public safety services</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>Carrier aggregation</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Higher throughput owing to intra and inter-band transmission bandwidth of more than 20 MHz.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Reduced network congestion owing to load-balancing across multiple carriers.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Improvement in mobility and reduction in inter-cell interference.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>Enhanced MIMO</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Improved spatial diversity and multiplexing</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Improved beam-forming</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Multiple access with multi-antenna transmission</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>Coordinated Multi-Point Operation (CoMP)</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Reduction in intercell interference owing to coordinated scheduling or beamforming (CS/CB)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Transmission from multiple distribution points (base stations, RRH) in a coordinated way (Dynamic point selection, and Joint transmission)</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>What do SSOs handle IPR in different parts of the world and what are the issues they face?</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">GISFI has adopted ITU's IPR policy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In SSOs, the FRAND principle works well only when participating entities have equal or almost equal IPR clout, and can reciprocate with their own patents every time other entities share their patents. It is difficult to create a balance between entities that only own IPR and those that only consume IPR.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Most of the members of SSOs are IPR owners. The entities that develop [technological] solutions without owning the IPRs are usually not a part of SSOs. However, additional strategies need to be implemented for realising the "Make in India" goal. The goal of zero imports by 2020 can only be achieved if a large number of small companies use these standards to develop products locally. <b>So small manufacturers should be represented even at the highest levels of the standards development body. </b>An IPR policy should be defined/ modified to factor in these needs.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Evaluation of LTE essential patents declared by ETSI </b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Cyber Creative Institute, June 2013: <a href="http://www.cybersoken.com/research/pdf/lte03EN.pdf">http://www.cybersoken.com/research/pdf/lte03EN.pdf</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A large number of LTE patents are held by a handful of companies. There is no Indian owner of any LTE SEP.</p>
<p>Ericsson sued Apple in the US over infringement of its LTE patents. As of January 2015, Apple countersued Ericsson in a federal court in California and claimed that it did not owe any royalties to the latter.</p>
<p class="callout">Apple also stated that Ericsson was calculating royalties on the sale price of the iPhone or iPad, whereas the royalty should be calculated on the value of the baseband chip that runs this technology in the mobile device. If such litigation occurs in India, what would be India's position? If a building block contains the technology pertaining to a patent, then royalty should be calculated on the smallest possible patent practising unit and not the entire product.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Dr. Kumar N. Shivarajan, CTO, Tejas Networks</h3>
<h3></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>TSDSI's (Telecommunications Standards Development Society of India)</b> IPR policy states that a member's technology will become a part of a standard as long as the member licenses it on FRAND terms to other members.</p>
<ul>
<li>By 2017, 70% of the global equipment spend will be on LTE.</li>
<li>TD-LTE subscriber base in India has been projected to reach 67 million by 2017.</li>
<li>Most of the data connections in India are still on 2.5G.</li>
<li>Smartphones have become affordable but 3G continues to languish in India; 4G yet to take off.</li>
<li>The number of 3G connections in India grew from 30 million to 33 million from 2013 to 2014.</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Is 5G the answer to India's access problems?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The mobile industry is aiming to go beyond traditional 4G LTE in 2015 and there is increasing focus on adding new bells and whistles to 4G and realise 4G+.</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>
<p>LTE Licensed-assisted access (formerly LTE-Unlicensed)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>LTE Direct/ Peer-to-peer</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>LTE-M for machine to machine communication</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>CoMP</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Countries forming 5G groups to take an early lead:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>
<p>China: IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Korea: 5G Forum</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>EU: 5G Public Private Partnership (5G-PPP)</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">5G in its current form is souped-up 4G.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Key India-specific requirements for 5G standard development</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>
<p>5G must factor in the Indian requirement for DSL-like connectivity: Always ON, low latency, affordable cost</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>To minimise costs, 5G must minimise the use of BTS sites and focus on spectral efficiency.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>5G should allow virtual network operations enabling multiple operators to use the same physical network infrastructure.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>5G must work well in Indian propagation environments: concrete buildings blocking signals, dense barriers.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>5G infrastructure should be green as electricity shortfall is a problem. India has 400,000 cell towers. 10% of them are not connected to the electricity grid. More than 70% experience power outages longer than 8 hours per day, and work on diesel-powered generators. As a result, 25% of the operational costs of telcos are their energy bills. India imports 3 billion litres of diesel annually to run these cell sites.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India can try to get a headstart in owning the IPR that would eventually go into the 5G standard.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Prof. Ramakrishna, MHRD Chair, NLSIU, Bengaluru</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The attitude of an SSO towards patented technology determines the objective of its IPR policy. For example, an SSO may want to:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>
<p>Promote widespread implementation of a standard without unnecessary IPR implications.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Ensure transparency and certainty about the declaration of patents and patents' claims as SEPs.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Ensure that every patented technology is available at a reasonable fee, comparable to the value of the technology.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">What happens when IP ownership is transferred to another owner? It continues to be a part of the SSO but things get complicated.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">New owners, third parties, subsidiaries, and affiliates fall under the purview of the IPR policy, by extension.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>IP and Disclosure policies of Indian SDOs</b></p>
<ul>
<li><b>BIS</b> (Bureau of Indian Standards) and <b>TEC </b>(Telecommunication Engineering Centre) do not have IP policies of their own. TEC refers to the ISO/IEC IP policies wherever the technology is equivalent or the same.</li>
<li><b>GISFI</b> disclosure requirement: Each member is required to inform GISFI in a timely manner of essential IPRs. But members are not under any obligation to conduct IP searches. GISFI's IPR policy is based on that of ETSI.</li>
<li><b>DOSTI </b> (Development Organization of Standards for Telecommunications in India) is not functional.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>IPR policy for open standards in e-governance</b></p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; ">The government of India has adopted a royalty free (RF) approach to licensing open standards.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Mandatory Characteristics of Open Standards:</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>
<p>The patent claims necessary to implement the standard should be made available royalty free for the lifetime of the standard.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The standard shall be adapted and maintained by a not-for-profit organisation.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The standard shall have a technology-neutral specification.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The RF approach and the maintenance by a non-profit may be a disincentive for IP owners.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>IEEE patent policy:</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">IEEE invites participants to disclose patent claims essential to a standard under development. Upon disclosure, the patent holder needs to submit a letter of assurance that states:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>
<p>License(s) will be made available without compensation or at a RAND rate.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>A commitment to enforce the essential patent claims against any entity complying with the standard.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Or state its unwillingness or inability to license its essential patent claims.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Common patent policy for ITU-T/ ITU-R/ ISO/ IEC</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Recommendations/ deliverables are non-binding -- ensure compatibility of technologies and systems on a worldwide basis.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>The "code of practice":</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is desirable that the fullest available information should be disclosed although ITU, ISO or IEC are unable to verify the validity of any such information.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Major types of IPR policies:</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>
<p><b>Participation-based IPR policies</b></p>
</li>
<ul>
<li>
<p>These are common in small, informal bodies such as consortia.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Members are bound by the terms of membership to commit to licensing SEPs on RAND or RF terms.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>SEP holders notify the standards body in case RAND or RF licenses are not available after the draft standard has been published.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>
<p><b>Commitment-based IPR policies</b></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>These are commonly followed large, standards setting bodies.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>These bodies identify SEPs to a draft standard through disclosure and submission of licensing commitment.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Parties may seek alternative solutions or work on a withdrawn standard is the the alternative solutions don't work out.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Basic building blocks of commitment-based IPR policies</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Disclosure policies:</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>
<p>Disclosure is important for</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>sending requests to SEP holders to make licensing commitments</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>ensuring that experts' groups make informed decisions on inclusion of patented technologies</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>providing information to prospective standards implementers about the SEP owners</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Two forms of disclosure:</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>
<p>A call for patents is made at the start of meetings. This is more informational than binding.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Later, the member states its intentions regarding licensing the patent on RAND terms.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>How disclosure obligations arise (and commitments are binding):</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>
<p>IEEE has by-laws that are binding on members.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>ITU, IEC, and ISO: It is via a resolution or recommendation.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">(Indicative list)</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>General disclosure procedure:</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The nature of disclosure rules concerning self-owned patents depends on the status or the role of the entity.</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>
<p>A "submitter" is a participant in the working group making a conscious decision to submit its technology to the SSO for a license or free of royalty.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>A participant in a working group may submit its technology to the SSO free of royalty, on RAND terms, on RAND terms with the right to charge a fee, or with a refusal to license it. (A working group participant who discloses technology is usually a technology expert. When someone who does not have adequate knowledge of patents discloses technology, it has complicated implications.)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>A non-working group participant (third-party) may also submit its technology.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">ANSI has left it to the accredited SSO to decide the terms of disclosure for participants of working groups. It has not laid out a policy in this regard. Other organisations have laid out obligations on the submitter to disclose SEPs.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Nature of disclosure terms for patents owned by third-parties:</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">ETSI: It is obligatory.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">ITU/ ISO: Obligatory only for participants of the working groups.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">IEEE: Entirely voluntary</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; ">Non-essential claims are excluded from disclosure. Pending patent applications are not.</p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Working groups prefer early disclosure so that they may adopt or discard the claim as early as possible in the standard setting process.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">ITU: Disclosure from the outset</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">IEEE: During meetings of the working group</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">ETSI: "Timely manner"</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">AFSI: At a sufficiently mature level</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There is no mandate for updating the disclosure in case a standard evolves.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Most SSOs make disclosed patents public. Failure to disclose patents may result in accusations of abuse of monopoly or anti-trust/ anti-competitive activities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is difficult to identify all potentially essential patents due to the complexity of specifications.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some SSOs don't require IP disclosure at all. The obligations to license on FRAND terms would be sufficient.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; ">Only 16% patents declared as SEPs are actually SEPs, according to a study.</p>
<p>It makes sense for rightsholders to go for blanket disclosures instead of disclosure of specific patents.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><a name="docs-internal-guid-5f495392-d5b5-aaaf-afc5-9ebade8e118f"></a> Vinod Dhall, ex-chairperson of the Competition Commission of India (CCI):</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Our competition law is new, so there aren't any cases pertaining to patent litigation and involving the competition law, which we can treat as precedents. In one of the mobile phone patent litigation cases in India, the implementer has approached the CCI claiming that the licensor has been abusing its dominant position in the market by charging unreasonable royalties.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; ">The Delhi High Court has passed interim orders restraining the CCI from deciding these cases. Our appeal to the courts is that these patent infringement lawsuits should not be viewed in isolation. They should not be viewed as merely contractual issues between the licensor and the licensee. They should be seen in the context of their economic effects and their adverse effect on competition. The CCI should be enabled to deal with such cases.</p>
<h3>Questions-answers round:<b> </b></h3>
<p><b>What are the criteria for declaring a patent an SEP?</b></p>
<ol style="text-align: justify; "> <b> </b></ol>
<p><b> </b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>T. Ramakrishnan: </b> SSOs have no role in declaring that a patent is an SEP. The SEP holder declares that their patent is essential to a technical standard. Most of the time, the SEP may turn out to be a non-SEP at a later stage. Statistically, 16 out 100 claimed SEPs are actually SEPs. There is no way for SSOs to tell if a patent is an SEP. IP policies of most SSOs state that they don't search [if a patent is an SEP]. The members of SSOs are under no obligation to search.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The commitment to license an SEP on FRAND terms is more important to an SSO [than determining if the patent is indeed an SEP].</p>
<ol style="text-align: justify; "> </ol>
<p><b>Can compulsory licensing be implemented with government intervention in India so that the Central Government can fix a royalty and put an end to patent litigation?</b></p>
<ol style="text-align: justify; "> </ol>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><b>Matheson: </b> The phrase "compulsory license" sends a shiver down every corporate's spine every time it is used. International experience is that the judicial system has been the only forum where we have been able to have due process to enable us to construct cases properly in order to explain to the judge or to the jurors how the system works. That has produced very sensible solutions to this problem. Handing it off to the government to institute a compulsory license wouldn't be fair to the SEP holders.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>With respect to the "safe harbour" approach towards SEP-based injunctions, what does the licensee need to do to prove to the courts that it is a willing licensee, in the event that licensing negotiations fail or take a long time?</b></p>
<ol style="text-align: justify; "> </ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Matheson: </b> It gets down to the licensee showing its willingness to negotiate. The licensee cannot make a half-hearted attempt and decline to negotiate or decline the licensor's offer and then disappear. They should physically engage in the negotiation. If and when it gets to a judicial environment, the judges know when people are telling stories and when parties are bona fide. They can tell a ruse when they see one, and I think it is one of the things you observe in practice.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Ramakrishnan: </b> The licensee should be able to demonstrate that it is willing to pay the royalty and should deposit an amount towards royalty. One recommendation from AIPP states that instead of using the terms "willing licensee" and "willing licensor", use "good faith response". For "good faith" we have very well established criteria. The entire licensing process should end within 12 months of starting. If the negotiations fail or if the process takes longer, then they should agree upon an arbitrator to fix FRAND terms. These are indicators that demonstrate the licensee being a "willing licensee" or a "good faith" licensee.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Often technology changes before the legal action can be taken or the lawsuit completed, and the patent over which litigation has happened may no longer be relevant to the technology. How do patent holders deal with this situation?</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>S.K. </b> <b>Murthy, </b> <b>Research Scholar, </b> <b>NLSIU:</b> Even if the technology becomes obsolete, damages can be claimed retrospectively.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Matheson: </b> You have a commitment to a FRAND solution, so that when you enter the protracted negotiation, you know that at the end of it you will get a fair solution. That's not always the case when you are dealing outside the FRAND world. You're dealing with a FRAND incumbent, not with unlicensed patents.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Why is putting a time limit to negotiations not a good idea? Also, IEEE seems to have done well by taking the threat of negotiations out of its way. Is it practical in India, because injunction is still the most potent weapon to protect intellectual property rights in India currently?</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Matheson:</b> Licensing is incredibly complex. There can be claims to the validity of the patent, there are claim charts to be drawn, there is expert evidence to be put together. Litigation over patents can take 2 to 3 years. To say that there must be a solution [arrived at] within a smaller framework gives the licensor the opportunity to wait around till the end of that period and assert its patents through an injunction. If you're leaving injunction at the table, you will not have a fair solution. The licensee will always be at a major disadvantage. The IEEE solution is a good one because it has taken the time limit away, but at the same time the policies that would adopt that solution need to include the discipline to ensure that the negotiations are bona fide.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>What percentage of the sale price should be provisioned by a product developer for royalties? Can a mechanism be drawn up for this purpose?</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Justice Ratnakala: </b> Definitely. Such a mechanism should be drawn up in the near future.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/conference-on-standards-settings-organizations-sso-and-frand-nlsiu'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/conference-on-standards-settings-organizations-sso-and-frand-nlsiu</a>
</p>
No publisherrohiniIntellectual Property RightsAccess to KnowledgePervasive Technologies2016-04-02T18:12:41ZBlog EntryUbiquity, Mobility, Globality: Charting Directions in Mobile Phone Studies
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/center-for-global-communication-studies-november-6-2014-ubiquity-mobility-globality-charting-directions-in-mobile-phone-studies
<b>Nehaa Chaudhari made a presentation at the Ubiquity, Mobility, Globality : Charting Directions in Mobile Phone Studies Conference. This was organized by the Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia on November 6 and 7, 2014. Nehaa was on a panel titled Mobile and its Effects on Global Markets and made a presentation on Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Workplace.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Nehaa Chaudhari's presentation can be <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/pervasive-technologies-a2k-workplace.pdf" class="external-link">downloaded here </a>(PDF, 518 KB). <a class="external-link" href="http://www.global.asc.upenn.edu/app/uploads/2014/11/Program_final.pdf">Click here</a> for the full programme. Download the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ubiquity-mobility-globality.pdf/view" class="external-link">agenda here</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mobile phones are tools for activism and civic participation, surveillance and repression, market making and market disruption. In Ithiel de Sola Pool’s memorable phrase, there have been few “technologies of freedom” that match the consequences of these new instruments and the infrastructure that supports them. This conference examines dimensions of the social, political, and economic effects of the global ubiquity of mobile phones:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>What are the affordances and limitations of mobile phones in development?</li>
<li>What is the impact of mobile phones on socio-political change?</li>
<li>How do mobile phones continue to shape our civil liberties?</li>
<li>What are the geo-political consequences of these mobilities?</li>
<li>How does mobile phone adoption challenge and support market innovation?</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To tackle these questions, this conference brings together voices from the academy, civil society, and industry—all to examine the heterogeneous sources and consequences of mobility’s diffusion. The goal of this conference is to further interdisciplinary and comparative approaches to the understanding of the mobile phenomenon and to chart directions in mobile phone studies. The conference is funded by the Provost’s Global Engagement Fund, the Center for Global Communication Studies, and the Project for Advanced Research in Global Communication and the program reflects the input of several Schools at Penn, including the Annenberg School for Communication, Wharton, Law, and the School of Arts and Sciences.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/center-for-global-communication-studies-november-6-2014-ubiquity-mobility-globality-charting-directions-in-mobile-phone-studies'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/center-for-global-communication-studies-november-6-2014-ubiquity-mobility-globality-charting-directions-in-mobile-phone-studies</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgePervasive Technologies2014-12-04T16:27:26ZNews ItemMethodology: Patent Landscaping in the Indian Mobile Device Market
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/patent-landscaping-in-the-indian-mobile-device-market
<b>Through the patent landscaping exercise, we have identified patents pertaining to Internet-enabled mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less. The findings from this exercise are being used to develop legal strategies to reduce patent-based impediments to the widespread and rapid proliferation of this beneficial technology throughout India. The research methodology adopted for the patent landscaping exercise has been delineated here. This document is a work in progress.</b>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">1. Research Questions</h3>
<div style="text-align: justify; "><ol>
<li><span>Are there indications of increasing patent filing <span>over time </span>by the mobile device industry in India?</span></li>
<li><span>What patents pertain to capabilities commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less?</span></li>
<li><span>What are the existing patent pools for each of the capabilities identified in question 2? What do we know about these patent pools?</span></li>
<li><span>Would the existing patent pools be sufficient to ensure that:</span></li>
<ol>
<li><span> consumers continue to have access to inexpensive devices?</span></li>
<li><span>manufacturers operating in the budget segment are not snuffed out by patent litigation or do not pass on losses caused by patent litigation to their consumers?</span></li>
<li><span>the rights of patent holders are not infringed upon? If not, why?</span></li>
</ol>
<li><span>Which of these patent pools could go into an India-based mobile device patent "pool of pools" formed possibly through government intervention and having a royalty level supportable by the domestic Indian consumer market for mobile devices?</span></li>
<li><span>What is the design and manufacturing flow of a finished Internet-enabled low-cost mobile phone sold in India? <br /></span></li>
</ol></div>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">2. Objective</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The objective of the chapter is to exhaustively determine the number of patents that apply to an Internet-enabled mobile device that costs the equivalent of USD 100 or less in the Indian retail market. The set of patents is restricted to those that apply to technologies which are commonly found in such a device. This set of patents could be included in a patent pool for Indian manufacturers of mobile phones.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">3. Object</h3>
<p><i>[2. What patents pertain to capabilities commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less?]</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Eight mobile phones [Annexure 1 (<a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/annexure-1-mobile-phones-to-study.pdf/view">PDF</a>)] have been procured for identifying the technical standards implemented in them. These are phones manufactured in China and sold in the white or grey market in India either by Indian brands or by Chinese ones. <span>The research object also includes the Indian patent database, documentation published by standard setting organisations, and the practices of Indian manufacturers of Internet-enabled mobile devices in the sub-USD-100 segment.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>3.1.</b> The phones were used to determine “capabilities commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less” as described in research question 2. These capabilities were identified by (a) examining the physical components of the phone, (b) by running emulators which identified details about the hardware, (c) verifying the findings from (a) and (b) with the users' manual, packaging box, or any other documentation published by the manufacturer.</p>
<div style="text-align: justify; "><b><span>3.2. Criteria for Choosing the Mobile Phones</span></b></div>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><span>The handsets cost less than USD 100 (INR 6,000 approximately), connect to the Internet, and are sold in physical Indian markets.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-align: justify; ">Every handset has at least one feature that differentiates it from the rest of the set. For example, in-built support for multiple Indian languages; 50 kilowatt battery (as published on the carton and battery label); camera with CMOS sensor.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-align: justify; ">The universal set for the mobile phones of interest for this research can not be defined as the phones are sold in grey or black markets. Catalogues, online listings, company websites, and other documentation for this universal set are not available. Hence, it is not possible to definitively identify mobile phones that are 'representative' of the handsets of interest. Handsets that help one get a richer sense of the population of the sub-USD-100 mobile phone market in India have been chosen.</span></li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">4. Rationale</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Though India has not yet witnessed patent litigation of the same scale as developed countries, litigation over standard essential patents in India has already led to injunctions against nine homegrown and Chinese manufacturers<sup><a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a></sup>. The mobile device landscape in India uncovered through this research will be applied to the development of policy recommendations that aim to ensure that consumers continue to have access to inexpensive devices, that manufacturers operating in the budget segment do not end up shutting shop due to patent litigation, and the rights of patent holders are not infringed upon.</span></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">5. Research Method</h3>
<p><i><i>[1. Are there measurable indications of increasing patent filing by the mobile device industry in India?</i></i></p>
<p><i><i> </i>2. What patents pertain to capabilities commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less?]</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span> </span><span style="text-align: justify; ">Fifty Indian and non-Indian companies most likely to hold telecom-related patents in India were identified by CIS. [<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/fifty-companies.pdf" class="external-link">Annexure 4</a>]. Two patent searchs firm were contracted the task of searching the database of the Indian Patent Office by the names of the fifty companies for patents granted and applied for. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span style="text-align: justify; "> </span><span style="text-align: justify; "><b>5.1. Procedure for selecting law firms/ patent attorneys</b></span><span style="text-align: justify; "><b>:</b></span></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><span>Ten law firms and patent search agencies from different parts of India were identified as potential contractors after preliminary meetings with several patent attorneys and representatives of law firms.</span></li>
<li><span>Price quotations were invited from the ten organisations after holding one or more meetings with each.</span></li>
<li><span>On the basis of the quotation, deliverable time, scope and nature of the results delivered, and quality assurance, the contract was awarded to one firm of patent attorneys (Hourglass Research, Mumbai) and one law firm. The firms offered the best price for a commensurate deliverable time and assured quality of results.</span></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>5.2. Patent Firm 1 (Hourglass Research) Search Strategy:</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Step 1</i>: A taxonomy that comprehensively covers different technologies implemented in an Internet-enabled mobile phone was drawn up [<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/annexure-5.pdf" class="internal-link">Annexure 5</a>]. The taxonomy was split into categories (Level 1) and sub-categories (Level 2).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Step 2</i>: The Derwent World Patents Index (DWPI) assigns one or more manual codes (MC) to each patent depending on the technology described by the patent. The patent firm matched manual codes pertaining to mobile technology with categories in the taxonomy. Thus, each manual code corresponded to one or more categories in the taxonomy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Step 3</i>: Subsequently, search strings [<a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/annexure-6.pdf">listed in Annexure 6</a>] were used to find published applications as well as granted patents from the Thomson Innovation (TI) database. The search strings comprise permutations and combinations of the manual codes [<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/annexure-7.xls" class="internal-link">Annexure 7</a>], fifty assignees<span style="text-align: justify; "> </span>, keywords, and IPC classes and sub-classes. The search results were extracted on February 23, 2015. Hence, the patents granted or published till then have been included in the landscape. The start date is January 1, 2000 as the Thomson Innovation Database does not contain earlier records from the Indian Patent Office database.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Step 4</i>: Then, manual codes for each patent in the results were extracted. Each patent was assigned a category corresponding to its manual codes. This automated categorisation was manually reviewed and validated by reading the claims, abstract, DWPI use, and DWPI novelty. In instances where the patent could not be categorised based on the information contained in the claims, abstract, DWPI use, and DWPI novelty, the detailed description associated with the patents (i.e., the column entitled "Description" in the dataset) was read.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Step 5</i>: The TI database yields International Patent Documentation (INPADOC) families. In instances where one or more patents from the same family appeared in the search results, granted patents were chosen over non-granted ones as "representative" of the family.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Step 6</i>: The results were deduplicated first on the basis of the publication number and then on the basis of the application number. In five instances, two or more different patents were assigned the same application number. This was resolved by manually reading the patent and determining the most relevant patent.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">4,052 patents and 19,517 patent applications relevant to the mobile phone were found at the end of the patent landscaping exercise.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>5.3. Schema for identified patents and patent applications</b>: Name of Assignee -- Patent Number -- Application Number -- Status of application (Granted/ Published) -- Application Date -- Publication Date -- Grant Date -- Database Searched -- Title -- Abstract -- Category (Level 1) -- Sub-category (Level 2) -- Infrastructure/ User Equipment/ both -- Title (DWPI) -- Abstract (DWPI) -- Abstract DWPI Novelty -- Abstract DWPI Use -- Comments/ Remarks</p>
<p><b>5.4. List of IPC classes and sub-classes and DWPI Manual Codes excluded from the patent search:</b> [<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/annexure-8.pdf" class="internal-link">Annexure 8</a>], [<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rejoinder-to-annexure-8" class="internal-link">Rejoinder to Annexure 8</a>]</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These classes, sub-classes and manual codes were excluded as they were very overarching for the research question. Class H04, for instance, pertains to "electric communication techniques". It is likely to comprise a comparatively large number of patents not pertaining to mobile device technology. Instead, certain sub-classes of H04 that are the most relevant to mobile device have been considered. As another example, the sub-classes of G01 pertain to measurements of physical quantities (length, area, thickness, et al). The number of patents pertaining to mobile technology in these sub-classes will be small compared with the number of patents in the sub-class.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>5.5 Patent Search Firm 2</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Patent Search Firm 2 used Questel and Questel Orbit databases to search for patents and patent applications filed in India from January 1, 2005 to January 1, 2015. The results delivered by this firm did not fulfill our quality standards. Hence, they were dropped from the research. We intended to compare the results of the two search firms to determine the difference.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<p><b>5.6. Identifying telecom standards implemented in mobile phones:</b></p>
<p><i>[2. What patents pertain to capabilities commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less?]</i></p>
<p>Using documentation available from standards-setting organisations and industry consortia, and from the nine handsets, 322 technical standards [<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mobile-phone-standards.ods" class="external-link">Annexure 2</a>] implemented in a networked mobile device have been identified by CIS. These technical standards support commonly found capabilities in a networked mobile handset. By dismantling the phones, their components were identified [<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mobile-phone-hardware.ods" class="external-link">Annexure 3</a>]. The list of components and standards was used to determine the patent pools, standard-setting organisations and standard development organisations of interest for research questions 3 and 4 as well as for the literature survey.</p>
<h3>6. Validation of Results</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The results of the patent landscaping exercise turned in by the patent search firm were validated by performing the following steps:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><span>Checking for duplicate application numbers via MySql</span></li>
<li><span>Checking for duplicate publication numbers via MySql</span></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">No duplicates were found.</p>
<h3>7. Analysis of Results</h3>
<p><i>[2. What patents pertain to capabilities commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less?]</i></p>
<p><b>7.1. Data Analysis</b>: Breakdown of 23,569 patents and patent applications</p>
<p>Number of patents and patent applications combined in the different Level 1 categories,</p>
<p>Number of patents and patent applications combined in Level 2 categories (i.e., sub-categories).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>7.2. Visualisations: </b>Graphical representations of the patent landscape</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">1. Number of patents in each Level 1 category<br />2. Number of published patent applications versus granted patents in each Level 1 category <br />3. Number of patents in each sub-category of “Communication”<br />4. Number of patents in each sub-category of “Operational Blocks”<br />5. Number of patents in each sub-category of “Sensors”<br />6. Number of patents in each sub-category of “Energy Storage”<br />7. Number of patents in each sub-category of “Sound, image, and video”<br />8. Number of patents in each sub-category of “Display”<br />9. Number of user equipment patents, infrastructure patents and infrastructure and user equipment patents.<br />10. Number of patents held by each of the fifty assignees<br />11. Number of patent filings by the fifty assignees from the year 2000 to the year 2014 <br />12. Number of patents in each Level 1 category filed over the years (time intervals: 2000-2003, 2004-2007, 2008-2011, 2012-2014) <br />13. Number of patents filed annually from the year 2000 to 2014 for all Level 1 categories combined<br />14. Top 10 assignees in Communication<br />15. Top 10 assignees in Operational Blocks<br />16. Top 10 assignees in Software<br />17. Top 10 assignees in Sensors<br />18. Top 10 assignees in Sound, Image, and Video<br />19. Top 10 assignees in Display<br />20. Number of patents in each Level 1 category held by each assignee in the top 10. (The ten assignees with the most number of patents in the overall dataset of 23,569.)<br />21. Number of patents filed from the year 2000 to 2014 in each sub-category of Communication<br />22. Number of patents filed from the year 2000 to 2014 in each sub-category of Operational Blocks<br />23. Sub-categories (Level 2 categories) with the highest number of filings [Baseband; Bandwidth; Call and data management; Signalling, routing and switching]<br />24. Top 10 assignees in Baseband<br />25. Top 10 assignees in Bandwidth<br />26. Top 10 assignees in Call and data management<br />27. Top 10 assignees in Signalling, routing and switching</p>
<h3>8. Confidential Research and Anonymised Interviews</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>[6. What is the design and manufacturing flow of a finished Internet-enabled low-cost mobile phone sold in India?]</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS conducted and published anonymised <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/interviews-with-semi-conductor-industry-professionals-in-taiwan-1">interviews with semiconductor chip manufacturers in Taiwan</a> in September 2014. A confidential research exercise was conducted with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and white-label assembly lines in China in 2014. The two research exercises have contributed to the mapping of the downstream flow of manufacturing a finished, Internet-enabled, low-cost mobile device.</p>
<h3>9. Literature Survey</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>[3. What are the existing patent pools for each of the capabilities found in a low-cost networked mobile device? What do we know about these patent pools? </i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>4. Would the existing patent pools be sufficient to ensure that consumers continue to have access to inexpensive devices, that manufacturers operating in the budget segment are not snuffed out by patent litigation (or pass on losses caused by patent litigation to their consumers), and the rights of patent holders are not infringed upon. If not, why?]</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Research questions 3 and 4 will be answered via a comprehensive<a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/literature-survey-patent-landscaping-in-the-indian-marketplace"> literature survey</a>.<sup><br /></sup></p>
<h3>10. Prior Art</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A list of 2,300 patents from different jurisdictions (US, Japan, India, Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, Europe, China, Finland, France, Norway, UK, Germany, Singapore) searched by keyword/ keystring was compiled in 2013 <sup><a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a></sup>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Clairvolex, a market research firm based in Gurgaon conducted a patent landscaping exercise of mobil technologies in India in 2010. The search was based on IPC classes: http://www.clairvolex.com/pdf/communication.pdf</p>
<h3>11. Narrative:</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The chapter for the book takes the form of a story of an Indian businessperson travelling to Shenzhen in China to procure a consignment of mobile phones for selling them in India. The businessperson puts together a configuration of hardware and software for the mobile phone and sets out to find the royalties he would need to pay for it.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Numerical data has been presented using visualisations.</p>
<h3>12. Assumptions:</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The chapter assumes a direct link between the patent regime and the availability of inexpensive Internet-enabled mobile devices, whereas the latter is affected by several other factors outside the scope of this research, for example, trademark infringement litigation.</p>
<h3>13. Limitations:</h3>
<ul>
<li>The patent landscape only encompasses the patents and patent applications filed by 50 major brands in India. It does not take into account patents held by other vendors, universities, and educational institutions. </li>
<li>The patent landscaping exercise was conducted for patents granted and applications filed between January 1, 2000 and February 23, 2015 as earlier data for Indian patents was not available in the Thomson Reuters database. As the lifespan of a patent is 20 years, live patents granted between 1995 and 2000 in India are not present in the landscape.</li>
<li>IPC classes, sub-classes and DWPI manual codes listed in Annexure 8 were not included in the patent landscape as they were very overarching for the research question. Class H04, for instance, pertains to "electric communication techniques". It is likely to comprise a comparatively large number of patents not pertaining to mobile device technology. Instead, certain sub-classes of H04 that are the most relevant to mobile device have been considered. As another example, the sub-classes of G01 pertain to measurements of physical quantities (length, area, thickness, et al). The number of patents pertaining to mobile technology in these sub-classes will be small compared with the number of patents in the sub-class. Owing to the presence of a relatively large number of patents superfluous to the research, these classes were not included in the interest of time, effort, and monetary cost.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<ul>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Edited, April 8, 2015</b>: To add -- Procedure for selecting law firms/ patent attorneys for this task, Patent database searching by company name, List of companies</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Edited April 27, 2015</b>: To update -- <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mobile-phone-standards.ods" class="external-link">Annexure 2</a>, List of standards and specifications found in sub-USD-100 Internet-enabled mobile phones sold in India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Edited, May 23, 2015</b>: To remove "Scope: Software patents will not be considered" as software patents granted in India have been found.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Edited, July 25, 2015</b>: To remove steps "Patent database searching by standard" and "patent database searching by keyword" as they would have increased the time and costs needed for the landscaping without adding significant value. Hence, removed the research question, "What degree of standards implemented in the mobile device technology sold within India compared with that in the US is currently covered by patents?"</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Edited, November 7, 2015:</b> To edit – Research question 1. Are there measurable indications of increasing patenting activity in the mobile device industry in India?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">2. What patents are absolutely necessary to keep a networked mobile device which costs less than USD 100 in India running?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">3. What are the existing patent pools for each of the standards identified and what do we know about them?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">4. Question trifurcated.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">5. <span>Which of these patent pools could go into an India-based mobile device patent "pool of pools" formed possibly through government intervention and having a royalty level supportable by the domestic Indian mobile device market?</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Research Objective: The set of patents is restricted to those that apply to technologies that are absolutely necessary for the functioning of such a device. <br /><br />To add in “Research Object”: The research object was used to determine “ features commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India that cost less than USD 100” as described in research question 2.<br /><br />To add sections on Analysis of Results, Confidential Research and Anonymised Interviews, and Literature Survey.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Edited, November 17, 2015: </b>To add section on Limitations.<b> <br /></b></p>
<hr />
<h3>Footnotes:</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">[<a href="#fr1" name="fn1">1</a>]. Compilation of Mobile Phone Patent Litigation Cases in India, Rohini Lakshané, March 15, 2015, http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/compilation-of-mobile-phone-patent-litigation-cases-in-india, Last accessed November 7, 2015.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">[<a href="#fr2" name="fn2">2</a>]. Mobile Phone Patents: Prior Art Survey, Nehaa Chaudhari, October 23, 2013, http://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/mobile-phone-patents, Last accessed November 7, 2015.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/patent-landscaping-in-the-indian-mobile-device-market'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/patent-landscaping-in-the-indian-mobile-device-market</a>
</p>
No publisherrohiniAccess to KnowledgePervasive Technologies2017-02-15T14:05:38ZBlog Entry“Copyright Management in the Age of Mobile Music” - Living Methodology Document
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/copyright-management-in-age-of-mobile-music
<b>This blog post outlines the research methodology for a chapter in the Pervasive Technologies: Access to the Marketplace project, in which access to the mobile phone hardware, software, and content is assessed within the intellectual property framework in India and China. This chapter focuses on copyright and access to music content in India. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Research Problem: </b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In light of new music distribution business models accessible via the mobile phone, there has been increasing complexity in music copyright licensing, revenue, and royalty distribution. Despite the intent of the 2012 Copyright Amendment to resolve stakeholder grievances, the copyright institutions in India continue to lack legitimacy amongst relevant stakeholders for the management of music copyright.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Research Objective: </b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Provide evidence-based policy proposals which may aid industry leaders and policy makers to more effectively manage music copyright in India</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Research Questions </b></p>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>How have evolving music distribution technologies accessible via the mobile in India impacted business models and licensing practices amongst stakeholders in the digital music industry?</li>
<li>What are the specific copyright challenges for each relevant stakeholder, and how can the copyright institutions provide for more effective management in the industry? </li>
</ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Research Objects</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Copyright institutions:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><span>Copyright Act (and 2012 Amendment)</span></li>
<li><span>Copyright Board</span></li>
<li><span>Copyright societies</span></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Modes of mobile music access</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><span>Value-added-services</span></li>
<li><span>Device- bundled music</span></li>
<li><span>Online download stores</span></li>
<li><span>Online streaming (primary focus due to increasing popularity)</span></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Methodology</b></p>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><b>How have evolving music distribution platforms impacted business models and licensing practices amongst stakeholders in the digital music industry?</b>
<ul>
<li>Map out digital platforms' business models</li>
<li>Identify stakeholders within these ecosystems, and their copyright licensing negotiation process, terms, and revenue distribution </li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><b>What are the specific challenges pertaining to copyright and licensing for each relevant stakeholder? How can the copyright institutions provide for more effective management? </b>
<ul>
<li>Identify and evaluate grievances pre- and post-2012 Copyright Amendment</li>
<li>Identify proposals for improvement of copyright institutions: Copyright Act, Copyright Board, copyright societies. </li>
<li>Compare music copyright institutional structure and process in other jurisdictions </li>
<li>Gather list of policy proposals and evaluate </li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Methods:
<ul>
<li>Literature review – industry reports, media reports, industry blog posts, academic research, </li>
<li>Expert interviews of stakeholders – handset manufacturers, copyright societies, government, lobby groups, content aggregators, music labels, music publishers, online streaming platforms, online music retailers, venture capital investors, telecom operators, musicians, multi-channel networks, legal practitioners </li>
<li>Stakeholder analysis of policy proposals</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; "> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/copyright-management-in-age-of-mobile-music'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/copyright-management-in-age-of-mobile-music</a>
</p>
No publishermaggieAccess to KnowledgePervasive Technologies2014-12-26T13:44:25ZBlog EntryBeyond Alcohol and Angel Investors: Building Business Models in an Age of Mobile Music Streaming (Conference Learnings)
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/beyond-alcohol-and-angel-investors
<b>This blog post is the first of a series of blogs to document, synthesize, and analyze learnings from attending various music industry trade conferences. This first post introduces the research question, and highlights learnings about the various business models which can be accessible via the mobile, and broadly how the music industry is attempting to respond to monetization challenges.
</b>
<div>
<div><strong>Introduction</strong></div>
<div> </div>
<div>The Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Marketplace project is conducting research on access to the mobile phone hardware, software, and content in the context of the intellectual property regimes in India and China. This chapter focuses on access to music content via the mobile phone in India with a particular focus on copyright law.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Following preliminary research, it was identified that the copyright organizing institutions in India lacked legitimacy amongst stakeholders within the music industry. For the purposes of this research, these institutions include the Copyright Act, the Copyright Board, and the copyright societies. Collectively, these institutions have received constitutionality petitions, corruption allegations, and critiques of overall ineffectiveness in regulating and balancing music copyright for the maximal benefit to society. This is of particular importance in light of new modes of digital music distribution technologies (such as mobile phones, and music streaming platforms) which have resulted in a tremendous increase in music consumption but simultaneous decrease in revenue. This is in part due to new business models for music streaming services, and the increasing complexity of music copyright and licensing management in the digital content industries.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>1) How have evolving music distribution technologies accessible via the mobile phone impacted business models and licensing practices amongst stakeholders in the digital music industry?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>2) What are the specific copyright challenges for each stakeholder in the digital music distribution chain? How can the copyright institutions provide for a more effective regulation and regulation of music in India?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The research methodology<a href="#sdfootnote1sym">1</a> includes a series of expert interviews whose participants were identified by attending the following key music industry trade conferences in India, and remotely attending in the relevant conferences abroad:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>1) 6th MixRadio Music Connects Conference in Mumbai ("MRMC")<a href="#sdfootnote2sym">2</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>2) The Exchange UK Conference ("Exchange")</div>
<div> </div>
<div>3) Indiearth Independent Music, Film, and Media Xchange Conference ("Indiearth XChange")</div>
<div> </div>
<div>4) Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit (remote attendance) ("FMC")<a href="#sdfootnote3sym">3</a></div>
<strong> </strong>
<div> </div>
<div>5) San Francisco Music Tech Summit (remote attendance) ("SFMT")<a href="#sdfootnote4sym">4</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>This first post will highlight learnings from the above conferences<a href="#sdfootnote5sym">5</a>, primarily to respond to the question: <strong>What business models for digital music distribution exist in the market today</strong>? <strong>How is music production financed today? </strong>The question of how each industry stakeholder is responding to monetization challenges will also be explored. The main findings documented are mainly sourced from the MRMC and IndiEarth Xchange conferences due to their focus on India and its unique, context-specific challenges.</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;" class="quoted">"<em><strong>India should stop chasing and build business models. We are already ahead... </strong> <strong>being a mobile-first market...</strong> <strong> now must lead </strong> <strong>by learning from our rich cousins - the film and television industry.</strong> <strong>" - </strong> <strong>Sridhar Subramaniam, CEO, Sony Music India<a name="sdfootnote6anc" href="#sdfootnote6sym"><sup>6</sup></a> </strong> </em></blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<div>
<div>
<div>Business models and monetization seemed to be the key buzz words at the 6th annual MixRadio Music Conference held in Mumbai, with industry veteran <strong>Sridhar Subramaniam,</strong> CEO Of Sony Music India giving the opening keynote speech <strong>'How the Industry Stands Today?</strong><em>'</em>. Despite <strong>Vijay Lazarus</strong>, Secretary of the Indian Music Industry preceding the keynote with a welcome speech warning of piracy as the biggest barrier to monetization. Subramaniam seemed much more optimistic, declaring 2016 as the 'year of music' despite a 10% decline in the former year due to decreased subscription in c first aller ring-back tunes <a href="#sdfootnote7sym">7</a>. This was in part due to his belief that India was ahead of the game -- being a mobile-market amidst a global trend of mobile music convergence through streaming-based music consumption. Given India's increasing preference for music access in this form, Subramaniam suggested India "stop chasing and build business models" via learning from the music industry's two rich cousins -- the television and film industry.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Subramaniam outlined a strategic plan for growing the 200 million dollar music industry up to a billion in 5 years. He explained how the music industry is positioned where the TV industry was 5 years ago - giving content away for free via ad-supported revenues. This is due to the popular "freemium" business model for music streaming, which allows users to listen to music for "free" (data-consuming, supported by advertisements), with an option to upgrade to a paid tier.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Given recently overlapping ecosystems - standalone music services, device-embedded music services, and operator-supported music services - the question was whether there was enough advertising based revenue to sustain this cluttered industry. In three years, Subramaniam predicted moving from predominantly pirate-consumed music, to ad-supported to a consumer-paid revenue model.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>This transition would be done via learning from the film industry through a technique called <em><strong>windowing.</strong></em> This is when the same content is released through multiple windows - for film, this is done first in a theatre, then via home video, then television, then broadcast TV. For the music industry, monetization could occur via exclusives, recommendations, personalization, quality, or regional restrictions; holding some kind of premium content behind a paid wall. This strategy according to Subramaniam's estimates could reach the billion dollar mark in 3 years with the goal of transitioning the 200 million pirated market, to 75 million ad supported, to 25 million subscribers.</div>
</div>
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;" class="quoted">" <em> <strong> For the first time we have access [to music] from not just one, two, but three ecosystems - standalone music services, device embedded music services, and operator-supported music services." - Sridhar Subramaniam </strong> </em></blockquote>
<div>
<div>
<div>Following the forward thinking strategy for future business models, the rest of MRMC's panels brought the conversation back to current services and ecosystems of standalone, device-embedded, and operator-supported music services. This increasingly crowded space, along with new international entrants makes the mapping of upcoming services extremely difficult. Nevertheless, the diversity of these services were attempted to be represented at MRMC, with "standalones" like streaming services <strong>Gaana, Hungama </strong>Australian-based <strong>Guvera, </strong>and <strong>RDIO </strong>(which acquired former Indian service Dhingana), along with download stores like Indian-based independent platforms <strong>OKListen, Songdew, </strong>and <strong>Insync. </strong>"Device-embedded" services were represented by<strong> Samsung </strong>with its MilkMusic service, and formerly Microsoft/Nokia owned <strong>MixRadio </strong>(which has been recently acquired by LINE messaging app<a href="#sdfootnote8sym">8</a>). Lastly, "operator supported" platforms was represented by <strong>Bharti Airtel </strong>who introduced their new <strong>Wynk </strong>app, only fully accessible for Airtel telecom subscribers. Multinational content aggregator<strong> Believe Digital </strong>also was present, providing insight on how the back-end aggregation of content works. A question from the audience inquiring about how to get ones' music onto the various platforms revealed content aggregators' main value -- providing smaller labels and independent artists the ability to ensure their content is distributed widely across multiple platforms. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Although the MRMC panel <strong>Streaming: Gathering Momentum</strong> hosted a variety of different streaming services, it seemed that there is increasingly less differentiation. Services like user-tracking playlist curation and recommendation, social media-inspired tagging, mood-based suggestions, friend-based recommendations, temporary offline downloads, and more were all being adopted in various forms. Business models of initial free-to-use/access with premium pricing for ad removal and full-on downloads were also becoming a standard across platforms. Some services prioritized specific stakeholders, like <strong>Guvera </strong>who described their advertiser/brand focused approach through brand play-list curation to target to certain music users.</div>
<div><strong><br /></strong></div>
<div>The <strong>Global Music and Mobile</strong><strong> </strong>panel at the <strong>San Francisco Music Tech Summit ("SFMT")</strong> highlighted challenges for music applications, with <strong>Kathleen McMahon, </strong>Vice-President at <strong>SoundHound</strong> noting the challenge of merely staying relevant in the app store, in part due to the decreasing differentiation with other services. In the streaming ecosystem, a variety of music consumption options are increasingly available through a singular platform (i.e. Hungama enabling on line streaming, download of songs, and purchase of ring-tunes). Given the principle product - the music itself - is the same, the differentiator is marked in part by the user interface, and perhaps more significantly, by price differentiation. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Panelists also spoke of interesting licensing challenges, one being the complexity of differing rates between web-streaming verses mobile streaming, wifi-data transfer, verses 3G access. This copyright challenge was also exemplified when a panelist lamented on the challenges of licensing in various geographic territories, asking "<strong>Should I be able to listen to my Spotify subscription wherever I go? Is this not possible purely because of rights and not technology? Do borders even make sense anymore?" </strong>These specific challenges will be discussed in an upcoming post highlighting copyright and licensing challenges, but it is worth mentioning here as a barrier to potential technological innovation and ultimately success and survival of these platforms. </div>
</div>
</div>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;" class="quoted">" <em> <strong> [MCNs are] the new age record label...except far more equitable and less exploitative." - Samir Bhanghra, Managing Director and Co-Founder, Qyuki <a name="sdfootnote9anc" href="#sdfootnote9sym"><sup>9</sup></a> </strong> </em></blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<div>
<div>Despite the increasing competition and services, one particular streaming platform which need not be concerned is the audio-video streaming service <strong>YouTube</strong>, which has a reach of 1 billion consumers, averaging to a viewership of 450billion mins per month <a href="#sdfootnote10sym">10</a>. Framed as the new broadcast company for user-uploaded content, this viewership directly translates into advertising revenue for the platform, with brands sponsoring specific content creators ("YouTubers") themselves. An interesting new stakeholder which is in part facilitating this phenomena are multi-channel networks ("MCNs"), who was represented in the MRMC <strong>Indian MCNs</strong> panel by MCNs <strong>Qyuki, Digital Quotient, Ping Network</strong> and YouTubers <strong>All India Bakchod.</strong> The MCNs described their business model as a relationship-service, which acts as an aggregator and optimizer of various YouTube channels. With back-end analytics and advertising strategies, MCNs aim to optimize monetization opportunities by focusing on maximizing CPM (clicks per impression) and identifying brand sponsors. Despite the seemingly disruptive service, <strong>Tammay Bhat </strong>of<strong> All India Bakchod</strong> was skeptical about the need for such service, asking<strong> "How will an MCN actually help me get more money and sustain? As a creator, brands are coming directly. They are so accessible and it's not that difficult. Perhaps it could help smaller creators but..."</strong></div>
<div> </div>
<div>Smaller creators and independent artists was definitely one of the target clientele for Qyuki. <strong>Samir Bhangra</strong>, co-founder of MCN Qyuki's held workshop <strong><em>They Say You Can Monetize Content Digitally - Really?</em></strong> at the IndiEarth Xchange ("the Xchange") independent music film, and media trade conference. He appealed to the independent artists by illustrating the potential reach of the one billion YouTube viewers, and explained some useful back-end analytics which can allow for more strategic and effective monetization. According to Bhangra, the CPM in India is about 1Rs per view, with the possibility of doubling or tripling this if viewed in the United States. Qyuki in particular sought to optimize monetization through ad-funded support (via CPM and brand sponsorship), payment via the MCN themselves for content creation, and 'forward integration' through increasing demand for live and digital gigs through increasing regular viewers. Bhangra even went as far as hailing Qyuki and MCNs as the "new age record label" which would allow content creators full creative control. </div>
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;" class="quoted">"<em><strong>Well, I support piracy so..." - Sohail Arora, Founder, KRUNK<a name="sdfootnote11anc" href="#sdfootnote11sym"><sup>11</sup></a></strong></em></blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<div><span style="float: none;">For independent artists, social media tools like YouTube, Facebook, and other direct-to-fan digital services are of even greater importance considering the relative lack of accessibility to mass-media marketing power. In the XChange workshop </span><strong>Driving You</strong><strong>r</strong><span style="float: none;"> </span><strong>Career with Social Media</strong><span style="float: none;">, </span><strong>Sohail Arora,</strong><span style="float: none;"> </span><span style="float: none;">founder of</span><span style="float: none;"> </span><span style="float: none;">booking agency and general artist management</span><span style="float: none;"> </span><span style="float: none;">company</span><span style="float: none;"> </span><strong>KRUNK</strong><span style="float: none;"> focused on search-engine optimization strategies for various social media platforms This included tips such as tagging influencers via social media, strategic timings of content posting, unique release and distribution of music, diversity in content posts, suggestions for increased fan engagement, and more. </span><br /><br /><span style="float: none;">The rise of new technologies seem to have brought an increased role and importance to not just social media tools, but also artists managers as well to utilize these services effectively as one of their duties. This new role and its various responsibilities was highlighted by the </span><strong>The Exchange Music Trade Conference ("the Exchange")</strong><span style="float: none;"> in the panel </span><strong>The Role of Artist Management Agencies</strong><span style="float: none;">. Considering the diversity of distribution options available, and the difficulty of controlling content usage once released, I asked artist manager Arora for his thoughts on some musicians' strategies of giving away free music downloads. He responded by stressing that freely giving away music was an </span><em>essential </em><span style="float: none;">marketing tool for his artists. The ability to download and share would in turn translate to an increased number of fans, quantifiable, measurable social media support (via "likes" and "follows"), and subsequently increased ticket sales, attendance for live shows, and brand sponsorship. This perspective resulted in an interesting conversation/debate with the audience, one member of whom was </span><strong>Marti Bharath,</strong><span style="float: none;"> producer/composer of electronic act </span><strong>Sapta</strong><span style="float: none;"> who believed that giving away music for free led to piracy, and a devaluation of music. In response, Arora unashamedly stated that he supported piracy, which temporarily halted that conversation during the time-crunched presentation.</span></div>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;" class="quoted">" <em> <strong> Independent Music is... anything that is not Bollywood" - Nikhil Udupa - MTV Indies. "If you liked it, good. If you didn't, not my problem" - Verhnon Ibrahim, Consultant<a name="sdfootnote12anc" href="#sdfootnote12sym"><sup>12</sup></a> </strong> </em></blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<div>
<div>
<div>Despite the numerous social media tools and online opportunities available for self-promotion, the reach of mass media and its role as a marketing tool was not forgotten amongst the independent music scene. </div>
</div>
<div>In the <strong>Making Space for Culture </strong>panel, an interesting conversation arose on what it meant to be an "independent" artist. It seems that it boiled down to those who were mostly unconnected to the larger institutional support of the music industry like major labels and traditional media -- radio, newspapers, magazines, and television. On the one hand, there was a sense of ambivalence as to whether or not their work would ever appeal to the tastes of the masses. One panelist had asked - would popularization of a certain artist or music remove the label of being "independent"? <strong>Nikhil Udupa </strong>of <strong>MTV Music </strong>defined independent music in India as anything that was not Bollywood, due to its dominance in the Indian music market and overall appeal to the masses. Music industry veteran Verhnon Ibrahim conveyed the notion of an independent artist by expressing the somewhat indifference to likeability when reflecting on his days while in a heavy metal band: "If you liked it, good. If you didn't, not my problem". He seemed to imply that appeal to the masses was essentially irrelevant, and almost more revered due to a sense of being able to maintain artistic integrity and authenticity.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The title of the panel itself - <strong>Making Space for</strong> <em><strong>C</strong></em><em><strong>ulture</strong></em> - was interesting, seemingly alluding to the opinion that mass-consumed, popular music was perhaps not as "<em>cultured"</em> . The main grievance and topic of conversation was that independent music, film, and media did not receive adequate airtime space on traditional media - television, radio, and even print. This premise was probably the only agreement during the panel, as conversation soon evolved to heated debates on whether media created trends or merely picked up on them; and whether there was lack of quality independent content for full-time curation of independent channels, a sentiment expressed by <strong>Nikhil Udupa </strong>from <strong>MTV Indies. </strong>This panel's conversation also touched upon a sense of entitlement which independent artists held, in which audience member <strong>Guru Somayji </strong>of Bangalore-venue <strong>CounterCulture </strong>expressed his agreement. This echoed the comment from an audience member earlier in the day who stated <em><strong>"musicians do not deserve to be paid... venue spaces do not deserve to make money. There is no entitlement. You only make money when people are breaking down the door to listen to you."</strong></em></div>
<div> </div>
<div>Amidst a crowd of independent musicians and artists hoping to devote their lives to creating their art in a financially feasible way, there was an understandably ill response from the audience. The main criticism was the lack of broadcasters' efforts in finding quality content, and allowing independents a chance to perform in large venues and mass media channels. <strong>Verhnon Ibrahim, consultant and industry expert</strong> on the <strong>Making Space for Culture Panel</strong> attempted to explain that radio, television, and other traditional forms of media and communication was a mass-market game, whose purpose was to ultimately to sell ads. He cited radio's high cost of royalty payments to explain the need to curate for the majority so advertisers will get the most reach. Ibrahim stressed the need to demonstrate quantifiable forms of "deserving" - number of Facebook likes, YouTube views etc. to demonstrate virality and fan following, so the media would have to pick up on ones' popularity.</div>
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;" class="quoted">"<strong><em>It's public knowledge that </em> <em>vast sums of money in royalties have not been collected... </em> <em>[due to a] </em> <em> situation of buying out rights, but even labels and rights holders say hundreds of thousands of pounds are not making their way back." - Terry Mardi, Managing Director, Asian Music Publishing<a name="sdfootnote13anc" href="#sdfootnote13sym"><sup>13</sup></a> </em> </strong></blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<div>
<div><span style="float: none;">Although several independent musicians raised grievances about the lack of avenues to perform in, and the </span><span style="float: none;">reoccurring</span><span style="float: none;"> problem of being paid on time, there seemed to be a hesitancy when discussing business strategies and the challenges of copyright due to technological innovation. </span><span style="float: none;">In the independent space, this was anecdotally demonstrated by one panelists' response when asked about the impact of technology on the distribution strategies for their art, and on financial returns for their livelihood. He responded:</span><strong> "Those are two separate things... one is about making money and making a living. The other is about making an art form. These are two separate things." </strong><span style="float: none;">Within the larger industry conference MRMC, there seemed to be a </span><span style="float: none;">lack of representation by musicians and content creators. Yet, one particularly vocal audience member, and later panel member of the UK Exchange was </span><strong>Terry Mardi, Managing Director </strong><span style="float: none;">of </span><strong>Asian Music Publishing. </strong><span style="float: none;">Numerous times throughout both conferences, he raised </span><span style="float: none;">the controversial issue of missing royalty payments in India, and the absence of royalty collection and distribution by unregistered copyright societies IPRS and PPL. In MRMC, this issue was ever so briefly touched upon in a panel when Bollywood playback singer </span><strong>Natalie Di Luccio</strong><span style="float: none;"> who's worked closely with A.R. Rahman mentioned that she had never received a contract outlining her rights and her royalty dues. Although there was very little curated conversation about this issue, coffee breaks demonstrated a clear gravitation towards those vocal and concerned about the issue, while many stakeholders, particularly the few musicians in the room seemed to find this a significant gap in voices not heard and expressed in MRMC. At IndiEarth, </span><strong>Vivek Ragpolan,</strong><span style="float: none;"> representative of the </span><strong>Music Composers Association of India</strong><span style="float: none;"> briefly commented as an audience member about the need to take collective action regarding composers and overall musicians' rights, stressing the importance of independent artists also being included within the new provisions of the Copyright Amendment Act. Though this issue of royalty licensing will be reviewed in a future post, this brief mention demonstrates the challenge of monetization and livelihood at multiple levels -- significantly for content creators, but also for the music platforms themselves. </span></div>
</div>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;" class="quoted">"<em><strong>It seems like the pricing model is wrong... it's the only way to explain the drop in revenue" - Tarun Malik, Apps & Content Strategy, Samsung <a name="sdfootnote14anc" href="#sdfootnote14sym"><sup>14</sup></a> </strong> </em></blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<div>
<div>Across different platforms, panels, conferences, and countries, one particular question seemingly common to all was that of price points band business model viability. <strong>Tarun Malik,</strong> Apps & Content Strategy of <strong>Samsung</strong> in <strong>Biggies Give Their View</strong> commented on the growth of the industry. Despite an increase in overall consumption, he noted - <strong>"It seems like the pricing model is wrong...it is the only way to explain the drop in revenue".</strong> <strong>Atul Charumani,</strong> formerly <strong>Head of Content with</strong> <strong>OnMobile</strong> and currently <strong>Managing Director</strong> of <strong>Turnkey Music</strong> stated that <strong>"in no other industry where the content is produced at such a high cost, is the product given away for free."</strong> In the <strong>Global Mobile and Music Panel</strong> at the <strong>San Francisco Music</strong> <strong>Tech Summit</strong>, the moderator asked a panel of music distribution service providers - <strong>"What is the value of music? Does music have intrinsic value at this point? Or is it just how it is presented?"</strong> In response, <strong>Dean Bolte,</strong> <strong>Managing Director of Omniphone</strong> expressed that the value of music was different for every person, and that some people were willing to pay more for access than others. The priority is to ensure that those who value music more have the opportunity to express through payment, since anything was better than zero. Beyond competition between music service apps, Bolte noted that the competition for funds also occurred across app categories, noting a generation of youth conditioned to acquire music for free through Napster, yet pay for additional levels in games. He closed the panel with the insight that "the product needs to be better than the sword".</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The targeting of youth and young adults was also conveyed by the somewhat surprising pervasiveness of brands, who had a larger than anticipated presence for a music industry conference. The UK Exchange demonstrated the potential of partnerships in its <strong>Brands & Music - When They Combine Forces</strong> panel. MRMC panel <strong>The Brand Sponsor </strong>also invited the Taj hotel (who seem like an unlikely sponsor) an opportunity to express its interest in supporting the discovery of new talent<strong>.</strong> <strong>Aditya Swami</strong> from <strong>MTV & MTV Indies</strong> said that brands can communicate through music, and create conversations with their consumers. Subramaniam, CEO of Sony Music mentioned the importance of funding through brands and advertising in the MRMC keynote <strong>How the Industry Stands Today</strong>, while IndiEarth's <strong>Taking it Live</strong> panel opened the day with a conversation about live venues seeking sponsorship from alcohol, clothing and other 'lifestyle' companies. Even the MCNs in the MRMC <strong>Indian MCNs</strong> panel discussed one of its main services as the securing of brand sponsorship.</div>
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;" class="quoted">"<em><strong>Independent music in India would not exist if it weren't for alcohol sponsorships" - Tej Brar, Artist Manager, Only Much Louder <a name="sdfootnote15anc" href="#sdfootnote15sym"><sup>15</sup></a> </strong> </em></blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<div><span style="float: none;">Music platform </span><strong>MixRadio</strong><span style="float: none;">, the title sponsor of MRMC was an understandably suitable partner, since it closely correlated to the main music product. Yet, particularly in India, it soon became apparent that alcohol brands have a very significant role in financing the music industry. This was highlighted when liquor-brand Bacardi received an award during MRMC for 'excellent brand association'. It was later learned in an interview that liquor and cigarette brands are not legally able to advertise in India, hence the popularity of alcohol sponsorships for live music festivals, venues, and club nights. </span><strong>Tej Brar, EDM Artist Manager</strong><span style="float: none;"> for </span><strong>Only Much Louder</strong><span style="float: none;"> believed that independent music would not exist in India if it weren't for alcohol brands. This is an interesting phenomenon considering just a decade ago, the idea of synchronizing ones' music with a corporate brand would be akin to "selling out". However, in today's increasingly digital world, especially in India where non-film musicians don't have much of a presence, brand sponsorship is one of the main 'monetization strategies' for music production. </span><span style="float: none;">The last important significant financier to mention are investors, showcased in the MRMC panel </span><strong>Of All Things Finance.</strong><span style="float: none;"> These "angel investors" play an instrumental role in backing many of the technology start-ups and other streaming services while experimenting with various business models. Yet whether these investment decisions are one that would reap sustainable returns is still a question to be answered. </span><br /><br /></div>
<div>
<div><strong>Conclusion</strong></div>
<div> </div>
<div>It seems in this mobile first market, India has the opportunity to lead the way in developing business models that grow the industry through multi-tiered windowing of music streaming. Strategically, in an ecosystem still rampant with piracy, moving consumers towards legal access to music can facilitate new sources of revenue. This opportunity has also given rise to new intermediaries like YouTube and multi-channel networks. time will tell whether their contribution will legitimately grow the industry or simply take away more pieces of what seems to be a shrinking profit pie. Independent artists are able to use new direct-to-fan distribution platforms such as YouTube, amongst others to share their works. Yet, it is clear that the sustenance of a livelihood off of digital sales and distribution is extremely difficult. It is interesting to note that the bulk of financing for music seems to be trending towards live shows and brand sponsorship. However, despite increase in digital music consumption, the distribution of the revenue needs to be further studied and understood. Given the ease of replication, this will require a further in-depth understanding of licensing and copyright management in India today.</div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote1" style="text-align: justify;">
<p><a name="sdfootnote1sym" href="#sdfootnote1anc">1</a> See the research methodology here: <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/copyright-management-in-age-of-mobile-music"> http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/copyright-management-in-age-of-mobile-music </a> last accessed Jan 22, 2015</p>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote2" style="text-align: justify;">
<p><a name="sdfootnote2sym" href="#sdfootnote2anc">2</a> All of the panels from this conference can be found online here: <a href="http://musicconnects.indiantelevision.com/y2k14/videos.php">http://musicconnects.indiantelevision.com/y2k14/videos.php</a> last accessed Jan 20<sup>th</sup> 2015</p>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote3" style="text-align: justify;">
<p><a name="sdfootnote3sym" href="#sdfootnote3anc">3</a> See here for the IndiEarth website: <a href="http://www.xchange14.indiearth.com/">http://www.xchange14.indiearth.com/</a> last accessed Jan 20 <sup>th</sup> 2015</p>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote4" style="text-align: justify;">
<p><a name="sdfootnote4sym" href="#sdfootnote4anc">4</a> Watch and/or listen to the Future of Music Coalition panels here:<a href="https://futureofmusic.org/events/future-music-summit-2014">https://futureofmusic.org/events/future-music-summit-2014</a> last acccesed Jan 19 <sup>th</sup> 2014</p>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote5" style="text-align: justify;">
<p><a name="sdfootnote5sym" href="#sdfootnote5anc">5</a> All data in this solely from public conference panels; including quotes, etc. Does not include any individual interview data.</p>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote6" style="text-align: justify;">
<p><a name="sdfootnote6sym" href="#sdfootnote6anc">6</a> As quoted from the MixRadio Music Connects Keynote panel:</p>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote7" style="text-align: justify;">
<p><a name="sdfootnote7sym" href="#sdfootnote7anc">7</a> Though it was not mentioned in the speech, it is useful to understand the initail demand for CRBTs was not necessarily genuine, for the fall in revenue was due to the crackdown by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to prevent false billing by telecom and value-added-service providers.</p>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote8" style="text-align: justify;">
<p><a name="sdfootnote8sym" href="#sdfootnote8anc">8</a> See <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/12/19/messaging-app-lines-first-acquisition-music-streaming-service-mixradio/"> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/12/19/messaging-app-lines-first-acquisition-music-streaming-service-mixradio/ </a></p>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote9" style="text-align: justify;">
<p><a name="sdfootnote9sym" href="#sdfootnote9anc">9</a> As heard in the MixMusic Radio Connects panel Indian MCNs on Nov 5<sup>th</sup> 2014</p>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote10" style="text-align: justify;">
<p><a name="sdfootnote10sym" href="#sdfootnote10anc">10</a> According to Samir Bhangra in MixRadio Music Connects' Indian MCNs panel on Nov 5<sup>th</sup> 2014</p>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote11" style="text-align: justify;">
<p><a name="sdfootnote11sym" href="#sdfootnote11anc">11</a> As heard at the IndiEarth Xchange conference in the Driving Your Career with Social Media panel on Dec 5<sup>th</sup> 2014</p>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote12" style="text-align: justify;">
<p><a name="sdfootnote12sym" href="#sdfootnote12anc">12</a> Stated at IndiEarth Xchange Conference in the Making Space for Culture panel on Dec 4<sup>th</sup> 2014</p>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote13" style="text-align: justify;">
<p><a name="sdfootnote13sym" href="#sdfootnote13anc">13</a> As heard at UK The Exchange Submerge conference on Nov 7<sup>th</sup> 2014</p>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote14" style="text-align: justify;">
<p><a name="sdfootnote14sym" href="#sdfootnote14anc">14</a> As stated on the MixRadio Music Connects panel Crystal Ball Gazing: Bigges Give Their View on Nov 5<sup>th</sup> 2014</p>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote15" style="text-align: justify;">
<p><a name="sdfootnote15sym" href="#sdfootnote15anc">15</a> In a conversation at the IndiEarth Music Xchange Conference on Dec 5<sup>th</sup>, 2014</p>
</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/beyond-alcohol-and-angel-investors'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/beyond-alcohol-and-angel-investors</a>
</p>
No publishermaggieAccess to KnowledgePervasive Technologies2015-02-23T12:39:36ZBlog EntryOpen Letter to Prime Minister Modi
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/open-letter-to-prime-minister-modi
<b>After the government introduced the "Make in India" and "Digital India" programmes, the air is thick with the promise of reduced imports, new jobs, and goods for the domestic market. In light of the patent wars in India, the government can ill-afford to overlook the patent implications in indigenously manufactured mobile phones. CIS proposes that the Government of India initiate the formation of a patent pool of critical mobile technologies and a five percent compulsory license. </b>
<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-741ac7e2-c01d-c02c-db3c-4cf2f2fdf6fc" style="text-align: justify; ">The blog post was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.medianama.com/2015/03/223-digital-india-make-in-india-form-a-patent-pool-of-critical-mobile-technologies-cis-india/">re-published by Medianama</a> on March 24, 2015.</p>
<hr />
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi,</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">We at the Centre for Internet and Society support the "<a class="external-link" href="http://www.makeinindia.com/">Make in India</a>" and "<a class="external-link" href="http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/Digital%20India.pdf">Digital India</a>" initiatives of the Indian government and share your <a class="external-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8QLIuABSYk/">vision of a digitally empowered India</a> where “1.2 billion connected Indians drive innovation”, where “access to information knows no barriers”, and where knowledge is the citizens’ power. The government’s plan of incentivising the manufacturing of electronics hardware, including that of mobile phones in the 2015 Union Budget is equally encouraging. Towards this important goal of nation building, the Centre for Internet and Society is researching the patent and copyright implications of Internet-enabled mobile devices that are sold in the Indian market for Rs 6,000 or less.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Bolstered by Make in India, several mobile phone manufacturers have started or ramped up their manufacturing facilities in India. Homegrown brands — such as <a href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-01-28/news/58546839_1_digital-india-spice-group-indian-cellular-association">Spice</a>, <a href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-02-04/news/58795672_1_devices-haridwar-april-2015">Maxx Mobile and Lava</a> — and foreign manufacturers alike are making humongous investments in mobile phone plants. Chip manufacturer <a href="http://www.mediatek.com/en/news-events/mediatek-news/mediatek-launches-rd-center-in-bengaluru/">Mediatek</a>; one of the newest entrants in the Indian smartphone market, <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/Xiaomi-to-set-up-research-development-centre-in-India/articleshow/46043461.cms">Xiaomi</a>; and telecom company Huawei, all different links in the mobile phone manufacturing chain, are setting up research and development units in India having recognised its potential as a significant market. These developments promise to cut or substitute imports, cater to the domestic market, create millions of jobs, and stem the outflow of money from India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, mobile phone manufacturers, big and small, have also been embroiled in litigation in India for the past few years over patents pertaining to crucial technologies. Micromax, one of the several Indian mobile phone manufacturers with original equipment manufacturers in China <a class="external-link" href="http://delhihighcourt.nic.in/dhcqrydisp_o.asp?pn=57850&yr=2013">was ordered by the Delhi High Court late last year to pay a substantial 1.25 to 2 per cent of the selling price of its devices to Ericsson</a>, which has claimed infringement of eight of its standard essential patents. <a class="external-link" href="http://www.medianama.com/2014/04/223-ericsson-sues-intex-patents/">Intex </a>and Lava, two members of Micromax’s ilk, have been similarly sued and claim to have received the short end of the stick in the form of unreasonable and exorbitant compensations and royalty rates. Chinese budget phone manufacturers operating in India — Xiaomi, OnePlus, and Gionee — also have come under the sledgehammer of sudden suspension of the sale of their devices. The bigger companies such as Asus, Samsung and ZTE have faced the heat of patent litigation as well.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">The fear of litigation over patent infringement could thwart local innovation. Additionally, the expenses incurred due to litigation and compensation could lead to the smaller manufacturers shutting shop or passing on their losses to their consumers, and in turn, driving the price points of Internet-enabled mobile devices out of the reach of many. It could also become a stumbling block to the success of ambitious plans of the government, such as the one to provide free <a href="http://www.firstpost.com/business/modis-big-bang-digital-india-plan-2500-cities-to-get-free-4g-level-wifi-2060449.html">WiFi in 2,500 cities and towns</a> across India.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; "><b>We propose that the Government of India initiate the formation of a patent pool of critical mobile technologies and mandate a five percent compulsory license. </b>Such a pool would possibly avert patent disputes by ensuring that the owners' rights are not infringed on, that budget manufacturers are not put out of business owing to patent feuds, and that consumers continue to get access to inexpensive mobile devices. Several countries including the United States regularly issue compulsory licenses on patents in the pharmaceutical, medical, defence, software, and engineering domains for reasons of public policy, or to thwart or correct anti-competitive practices.<a href="#fn1" name="fr1">[1] </a> <a href="#fn2" name="fr2">[2] </a> Unfortunately, we did not receive a response <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/letter-for-establishment-of-patent-pool-for-low-cost-access-devices" class="internal-link" title="Letter for Establishment of Patent Pool for Low-cost Access Devices through Compulsory Licenses">from the previous government to our suggestion</a> of establishing such a patent pool. We believe that our proposal falls in line with your ambitious programmes designed to work towards your vision of India, and we hope that you would consider it.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Yours truly,<br />Rohini Lakshané,<br />Programme Officer,<br />The Centre for Internet and Society</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Copies to:</p>
<ol>
<li>Shri Arun Jaitley, Minister for Finance</li>
<li>Shri Rajiv Mehrishi, Secretary to Ministry of Finance</li>
<li>Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, Minister for Human Resource Development</li>
<li>Shri Satyanarayan Mohanty, Secretary to Ministry of Human Resources Development</li>
<li>Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister for Commerce and Industry</li>
<li>Shri Amitabh Kant, Secretary to Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion</li>
<li>Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister for Communication and Information Technology</li>
<li>Shri Rakesh Garg, Secretary to Department of Telecommunications</li>
<li>Shri R. S. Sharma, Secretary for Department of Electronics and Information Technology</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p>Also read: <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/faq-cis-proposal-for-compulsory-licensing-of-critical-mobile-technologies">FAQ: CIS' Proposal for Compulsory Licensing of Critical Mobile Technologies </a></p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">[<a href="#fr1" name="fn1">1</a>]. <span id="docs-internal-guid-58b7fb82-db2b-7be3-83cf-b5045255b88c">James Love, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) written comments and notice of intent to testify at the Special 301 Public Hearing, Page 6, "US use of compulsory licensing",<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://keionline.org/sites/default/files/KEI_2014_Special301_7Feb20014_FRComments.pdf">http://keionline.org/sites/default/files/KEI_2014_Special301_7Feb20014_FRComments.pdf</a>, February 7, 2014, Last accessed February 10, 2015.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">[<a href="#fr2" name="fn2">2</a>]. <span id="docs-internal-guid-58b7fb82-db2b-7be3-83cf-b5045255b88c">Colleen Chien, Cheap Drugs at What Price to Innovation, Does the Compulsory Licensing of Pharmaceuticals Hurt Innovation, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Volume 18, Issue 3, Article 3, Page 862, "Compulsory licensing in the United States", <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1429&context=btlj">http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1429&context=btlj</a>, June 2003, Last accessed February 10, 2015.</span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/open-letter-to-prime-minister-modi'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/open-letter-to-prime-minister-modi</a>
</p>
No publisherrohiniFeaturedHomepageAccess to KnowledgePervasive Technologies2016-02-14T04:39:01ZBlog EntryCompilation of Mobile Phone Patent Litigation Cases in India
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/compilation-of-mobile-phone-patent-litigation-cases-in-india
<b>This working paper is an attempt to chronicle information about big-ticket lawsuits pertaining to mobile technology patents filed in India. All information presented in this paper has been gathered from publicly available sources. Interns Nayana Dasgupta, Sampada Nayak and Suchisubhra Sarkar (in alphabetical order) provided invaluable research assistance.
This paper was first published as a blog post on the CIS website on March 15, 2015. It was periodically updated till October 31, 2017 to reflect new developments in the different lawsuits at the Delhi High Court and the cases with the Competition Commission of India.</b>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Abstract</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Nearly three years after litigation over patents and designs associated with big-ticket mobile technology started in the US, the first salvo in the patent wars was fired in India. Sweden-based Ericsson, a provider of communications infrastructure and services, sued home-grown budget smartphone manufacturer Micromax in early 2013. Patent litigation in the arena of mobile phone technology has steadily risen since. Lei Jun, the chairman of China's largest smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi has said that facing a patent lawsuit "can be considered a rite of passage for a company that is coming of age". This paper is an attempt to chronicle lawsuits pertaining to mobile technology patents filed in India. The first part of this paper, “Compilation of lawsuits” is an attempt to chronicle the significant developments in big-ticket lawsuits pertaining to mobile technology patents filed in India. The second part, “Commonalities and differences in the lawsuits” is an attempt to join the dots between the developments that were either remarkably common or notably different. All information presented in this paper has been gathered from publicly available sources and is up-to-date till the time of writing (October 31, 2017). This paper has been published as a part of the Pervasive Technologies project at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS).</p>
<h3><a class="external-link" href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3120364"><b>View paper on SSRN.</b></a></h3>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/court-orders-mobile-phone-patents.rar/view" class="external-link">Access</a> the court orders and other references in the paper.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; "> </p>
<h3>Edit logs</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Edited, April 2, 2015: </b>To add section "6. Vringo vs. ZTE"</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Edited, April 3, 2015: </b>To add section "7. Vringo vs. Asus"</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Edited, October 23, 2015:</b> To add sections "8. Ericsson vs. iBall", "9. Ericsson vs. Competition Commission of India", "10. Ericsson vs. Lava". To update "Ericsson vs. Micromax" from <i>“Micromax has challenged……”</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Edited, April 15, 2016</b><i>: </i>To update "9. Ericsson vs Competition Commission of India... In a judgement dated March 30, 2016, the court dismissed all the writ petitions and applications pertaining to the role of the CCI before it and made these observations..."; "8. Ericsson vs iBall"; "10. Ericsson vs. Lava"; and "6. Vringo vs. ZTE".</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Edited, April 29, 2016: </b>To update "Ericsson vs. Xiaomi...On April 22, 2016, the Delhi High Court vacated the interim order passed in December 2014..."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Edited, January 13, 2017: </b>To update "Ericsson vs. Gionee... In July 2014..."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Edited, February 8, 2018: </b>To upload copy of working paper.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/compilation-of-mobile-phone-patent-litigation-cases-in-india'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/compilation-of-mobile-phone-patent-litigation-cases-in-india</a>
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No publisherrohiniAccess to KnowledgePervasive Technologies2018-02-08T14:41:17ZBlog EntryIndia at Leisure: Media, Culture and Consumption in the New Economy
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/india-at-leisure
<b>Maggie Huang attended the event and presented a paper titled “The Future of Music Streaming: Business Practices and Copyright Management in India”. The paper was co-authored by Maggie and Amba Kak. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>A striking feature of India's ongoing transformations is the runaway success of one sector of its economy. This is India’s leisure economy, often overlapping with the media economy, which entails a range of pursuits from sports to movies, from texting to TV---all of which forming a significant constituent of the country’s social and economic social life. While various activities within this sector were almost entirely neglected by India’s early planners, fuelled by narrow conceptions of media as an instrument of the state, today they remain little understood by national scholars and international analysts. With this background, a bi-national working group of scholars from India and New Zealand emerged in 2013 to reflect on the dynamics of India’s media economy. To build on this, an international conference is being organized, under the inaugural round of the India New Zealand Education Council programme, to broaden reflections on the dynamics of media industries and practices of media-culture constituting India’s leisure economy.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>For more see the original published by <a class="external-link" href="http://jmi.ac.in/ccmg/ime">Jamia Milla Islamia</a>.<br /></span></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/india-at-leisure'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/india-at-leisure</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgePervasive Technologies2015-03-30T15:34:30ZNews ItemPervasive Technologies Project in Hong Kong
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/pervasive-technologies-project-in-hong-kong
<b>Digital Asia Hub and the United Nations University Institute on Computing and Society (UNU-CS) held a new networking initiative. Digital Asia Hub and the United Nations University Institute on Computing and Society co-hosted a series of events aimed at fostering engagement and knowledge sharing at the intersection of technology, society, law, policy and international development. </b>
<p>CIS shared its insights on the Pervasive Technologies project.</p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/PosterofPTProject.jpg/@@images/d92ab03b-ab18-4507-a297-ca6f68e3e914.jpeg" alt="Pervasive Technologies" class="image-inline" title="Pervasive Technologies" /></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/pervasive-technologies-project-in-hong-kong'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/pervasive-technologies-project-in-hong-kong</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgePervasive Technologies2017-03-20T16:09:22ZNews ItemPatent Working Requirements and Complex Products: An Empirical Assessment of India's Form 27 Practice and Compliance
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/patent-working-requirements-and-complex-products-an-empirical-assessment-of-indias-form-27-practice-and-compliance
<b>India requires every patentee to file an annual statement, also known as “Form 27”, describing the working of each of its issued Indian patents. If a patent is not locally worked within three years of its issuance, any person may request a compulsory license, and if the patent is not adequately worked within two years of the grant of such a compulsory license, it may be revoked. The research paper on Form 27 practices and compliance by patentees authored by Prof Jorge L. Contreras, University of Utah, and Rohini Lakshané, Centre for Internet and Society has been accepted for publication in the NYU Journal of Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law.</b>
<p>The research paper by Prof Jorge L. Contreras, University of Utah, and Rohini Lakshané, Centre for Internet and Society was <a class="external-link" href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3004283">published on SSRN</a> on July 17, 2017. The paper has been accepted for publication in the NYU Journal of Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law.</p>
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<p>The potency of India’s patent working requirement was demonstrated by the 2012 issuance of a compulsory license for Bayer’s patented drug Nexavar. In order to provide the public with information about patent working, India requires every patentee to file an annual statement on “Form 27” describing the working of each of its issued Indian patents.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We conducted the first comprehensive and systematic study of all Forms 27 filed with respect to a key industry sector: mobile devices. We obtained from public online records 4,916 valid Forms 27, corresponding to 3,126 mobile device patents. These represented only 20.1% of all Forms 27 that should have been filed and corresponded to only 72.5% of all mobile device patents for which Forms 27 should have been filed. Forms 27 were missing for almost all patentees, and even among Forms 27 that were obtained, almost none contained useful information regarding the working of the subject patents or fully complying with the informational requirements of the Indian Patent Rules. Patentees adopted drastically different positions regarding the definition of patent working, while several significant patentees claimed that they or their patent portfolios were simply too large to enable the reporting of required information. Many patentees simply omitted required descriptive information from their Forms without explanation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Indian government has made little or no effort to monitor or police compliance with Form 27 filings, undoubtedly leading to significant non-compliance. However, some of the complaints raised by patentees and industry observers may have merit. Namely, that patents covering complex, multi-component products that embody dozens of technical standards and thousands of patents are not necessarily amenable to the individual-level data requested by Form 27. We hope that this study will contribute to the ongoing conversation in India regarding the most appropriate means for collecting and disseminating information regarding the working of patents.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/files/patent-working-requirements-and-complex-products">Download the Paper</a></b></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/patent-working-requirements-and-complex-products-an-empirical-assessment-of-indias-form-27-practice-and-compliance'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/patent-working-requirements-and-complex-products-an-empirical-assessment-of-indias-form-27-practice-and-compliance</a>
</p>
No publisherrohiniPatentsAccess to KnowledgePervasive Technologies2017-10-13T04:32:49ZBlog EntryNational IPR Policy Series: Quick Observations on the Leaked Draft of the National IPR Policy
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-quick-observations-on-the-leaked-draft-of-the-national-ipr-policy
<b>Earlier this week, the “Don’t Trade Our Lives Away” blog leaked the supposed final draft of India’s National IPR Policy (“leaked draft”). This article presents quick comments on this leaked draft.</b>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The leaked draft (which is <a href="http://www.livemint.com/Politics/hFpH9YGm7HnlR01AhXj5PI/Leaked-draft-only-an-input-to-national-IPR-policy-Amitabh-K.html">not final</a>) is available <a href="https://donttradeourlivesaway.wordpress.com/2015/10/12/indias-national-ipr-policy-leaked-final-draft-is-it-really-the-finest/">here</a>. The only official document that the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (“DIPP”) has released so far is the <a href="http://www.dipp.nic.in/English/Schemes/Intellectual_Property_Rights/IPR_Policy_24December2014.pdf">First Draft of the National IPR Policy</a> (“First Draft”).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">CIS has tracked these developments since the <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/the-development-of-the-national-ipr-policy">beginning</a>. We have submitted <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comments-on-proposed-ip-rights-policy-to-dipp">preliminary comments</a>, critical <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-cis-comments-to-the-first-draft-of-the-national-ip-policy">comments to the First Draft</a>, sent <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-requests-dipp-details-on-constitution-and-working-of-ipr-think-tank">multiple</a> <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-follow-up-rti-to-dipp-on-ipr-think-tank">requests</a> under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (“RTI requests”) to the DIPP and published their <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-rti-requests-by-cis-to-dipp-dipp-responses">responses</a>, discussed the <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-who-is-a-public-authority-under-rti-act">IPR Think Tank as a public authority</a> under the RTI Act, analysed the process compared to <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-indias-national-ipr-policy-what-would-wipo-think">recommendations</a> by the World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”), <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comparison-of-national-ipr-strategy-september-2012-national-ipr-strategy-july-2014-and-draft-national-ip-policy-december-2015">compared the First Draft</a> to an earlier National IPR Strategy<a href="#_msocom_1">[N1]</a> , written a <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-cis-letter-to-ipr-think-tank">letter</a> to the Think Tank and have now <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-what-have-sectoral-innovation-councils-been-doing-on-ipr">begun to track</a> the work being done by the Sectoral Innovation Council on IPR, also established under the DIPP. At the time of writing this post, we have been unable to locate comments to the First Draft made available by the DIPP.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Since the release of the First Draft in December, 2014, this leaked document has been the first look at an updated IPR Policy for India. Not much seems to have changed since December, 2014 and this new leaked draft (which is dated April, 2015), barring the inclusion of some <em>Special Focus Areas.</em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Perhaps one of the strongest criticisms of the First Draft had been that it supposed a nexus between IP and innovation, and various stakeholders had been quick to <a href="http://spicyip.com/2015/02/academics-and-civil-society-submits-critical-comments-to-dipp-on-draft-national-ipr-policy-by-ip-think-tank-part-i.html">point this out</a> as problematic, and fallacious. Unfortunately, since the language of the new draft has barely changed (I have managed to count only two-three additions), this remains the underlying issue in the new draft as well.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">What continues to be worrying in both drafts is sweeping references of benefits of IP to India’s socio-economic development. What constitutes this development and how IPR, and specifically the IPR Policy will achieve it is anyone’s guess, given that there are no references to studies undertaken to assess how IPR contributes to socio-economic development, specifically in India.</p>
<p>Here are some other quick comments:</p>
<ol></ol>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify;">In the first objective on IP Awareness and Promotion, the new draft includes an additional recommended step – that of engaging with the media to ‘sensitize them on IP issues’ (sic.). Given that this is under a broader objective of encouraging IP promotion, I am inclined to believe that this could be interpreted as telling the media to print positive things about intellectual property and refrain from criticizing intellectual property (that seems to be the theme of this entire document!). What does it mean to ‘sensitize’ the media about intellectual property?</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">In the second objective, on IP creation, the leaked draft contains a recommendation to conduct a study to assess the contribution of various IP based industries to the economy – including employment, exports and technology transfer. No other details have been provided in the draft. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Also in the second objective, the new draft makes a mention of improving the IP output of universities, national laboratories etc. The new draft proposes to encourage and facilitate the acquisition of intellectual property rights by these labs and institutions, whereas the earlier draft recommended the protection of IPRs created by them.</li>
<li>In the covering letter to the leaked draft, Justice Sridevan states that the final draft includes a discussion on key focus areas – creative industries, biotechnology, ICT, energy, agriculture, health, geographical indications (“GIs”) and traditional knowledge (“TK”). These have been discussed at the end of the new draft.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Limitations and exceptions remain confined to an area of future study/research for future policy development. The ‘Creative Industries’ section of the leaked draft makes a mention of the significance of limitations and exceptions to safeguard access to knowledge and information; and the need to balance user rights and property rights. One would have liked to see this discussed more substantively in the policy and not confined only to a paragraph in the section on ‘Creative Industries’.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">In a welcome move, the policy draft (new) seeks to promote the adoption of free and open standards and free and open software in the ‘Information and Communication Technology and Electronics’ section.</li></ol>
<p style="text-align: justify;">With the DIPP Secretary’s latest update that the new policy draft will be released in about a month’s time, one will have to wait and see what the final draft looks like.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-quick-observations-on-the-leaked-draft-of-the-national-ipr-policy'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-quick-observations-on-the-leaked-draft-of-the-national-ipr-policy</a>
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No publishernehaaIntellectual Property RightsAccess to KnowledgePervasive Technologies2015-11-19T05:13:14ZBlog Entry