The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) would like to remind all interested individuals that a free workshop focused on Arbitration of RAND Disputes will be held from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Tuesday, January 21, 2014. The event is sponsored by WilmerHale, American University, and the American Society of International Law and will be hosted by WilmerHale at 1875 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, DC.
The workshop will build upon ANSI's October 1, 2013, Legal Issues Forum, which examined significant issues connected to the licensing of standard-essential patents (SEPs) on reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) terms. A SEP is a patent that has been deemed essential to the implementation of a given voluntary consensus standard. A number of recent high-profile SEP disputes in the mobile device sector has brought increased attention to RAND commitments and prompted examinations of ways to resolve RAND disputes efficiently and with reduced litigation. The January 21 event will look at the pros and cons of an arbitration-based approach, which many have highlighted as a possible means of resolution for such disputes.
The workshop will be moderated by Jorge Contreras, associate professor of law at American University, and will be structured as an interactive roundtable discussion. The panelists for the event will be:
ANSI strongly encourages its members and all interested stakeholders - including representatives of government, industry, consumer groups, and academia - to attend the workshop and share their perspectives on this important issue. To attend this free event, individuals must register online in advance.
A draft agenda for the event is available online. For more information about the workshop, visit the event page on ANSI Online.