Anti-trust compliance in exercising patent rights (Part 1)

Patent pooling
A patent pool is a contractual arrangement through which two or more patentees jointly license in a certain form the patents owned by them respectively to any third party. It may be conducted through a specialised company in the form of an equity joint venture established for the purpose or by authorising a patent pool member or an independent third party to manage the patents. The patentees should pay attention to the following questions as they pack up their patents.

Are there competitive patents in the pool? Competitive patents are those that may compete with and replace each other. When several competitive patents are held by different patentees, a package of such patents may constitute an alliance of competitors, which likely runs afoul of the restrictions on horizontal monopoly of the Anti-Monopoly Law, such as price fixing.

Are there unnecessary patents in the pool? A patent pool is usually formed on specific technical standard or clear commercial purpose, and thus the patents contained therein should be patents necessary for satisfying such technical standard or realising such commercial purpose. To the contrary, in practice, if the patentees hold the critical patents in a relevant market, they usually attempt to put unnecessary patents into the pool so that they extend their advantageous position in the relevant market to other markets. Such activity may constitute tie-in sales if the patentees possess a dominant market position.

Is sensitive information exchanged for the pool? It is inevitable for patentees to collect and integrate their operational information to form and run the pool. They should ensure that information exchanged is only related to and used for the purpose of the pool. For competing patentees, the exchange of sensitive information such as price, output and market division that goes beyond the legitimate purpose may violate the restrictions of the Anti-Monopoly Law on horizontal monopoly; in most scenarios, an upstream-downstream relationship exists between the patentees (e.g. their patents relate to the production and processing of certain chemicals), and the exchange of sensitive information may violate the vertical restraints. It should be noted that although the Anti-Monopoly Law only lists resale price maintenance under vertical restraints, the enforcement agencies have the power vested by the catch-all clause to declare other kinds of vertical agreement illegal if they eliminate or restrict competition.

Is a patentee’s ability to conduct technical activities independently restricted by the pool? The purpose of the patent system is to encourage technological development and innovation, but in certain pools, the patentees’ ability to independently license, develop and pool patents is restricted to ensure the leading position and to eliminate competition. Such activity has constituted “restricting the purchase of new technology or new facilities or the development of new technology or new products”, and is prohibited by the Anti-Monopoly Law.

Terms of a patent licence agreement
A patentee with a dominant market position usually possesses an advantageous position in the negotiation of a patent licence agreement. Therefore, the terms of patent licence agreements reflect the will of the patentee more than that of the licensee. In practice, considering that licensees come from different parts of the world, the applicable law chosen by the patent licence agreement is usually the law of the patentee’s country, and the dispute resolution clause thereof generally chooses the court or arbitral body of such country. Such arrangement greatly reduces the possibility and uncertainty of applying foreign contract law, but cannot completely remove the compliance risk in anti-trust law – anti-trust laws in most countries, including China, have extraterritorial effect. As a result, if a patentee contracts with a Chinese licensee, or its patent affects the competition in the Chinese market, attention should be paid to the following, among other things, in the terms of the agreement:

Is there a price maintenance clause in the agreement? Price maintenance here mainly refers to vertical price maintenance, i.e., the activity of the patentee intervening the price of downstream product made by the licensee using the patent in question. The amount of royalty is calculated in different ways; however, if the price of downstream product goes up, the royalty paid to the patentee is usually higher because the manufacturer (i.e. the licensee) earns more profit. In practice the patentee will refrain from reaching a conspicuous price maintenance clause. Instead, it influences the price of the licensee by imposing indirect clauses that circle around to achieve the same purpose. Such clauses may still trigger anti-trust risk.

(to be continued)

行使专利权时的反垄断法合规（上）

随着高通案的曝光与国家工商总局《关于禁止滥用知识产权排除、限制竞争行为的规定》于2015年8月1日实施，如何行使专利权才能不触及反垄断法红线的问题再次引起了科技公司的注意。本文从专利联营和专利授权协议两方面对专利权行使过程中的反垄断法风险进行讨论。

專利联營
专利联营又称专利池或专利联盟，是指两个或者两个以上的专利权人通过某种形式将各自拥有的专利共同许可给第三方的协议安排。其形式可以是为此目的成立的专门合资公司，也可以是委托某一联营成员或者某独立的第三方进行管理。多个专利权人将专利打包授权的过程中，需要注意以下
问题：

专利联营中是否存在竞争性专利？竞争性专利是指互相之间存在竞争关系、可以替代的专利。当数个竞争性专利分别由不同的专利权人持有，将其打包授权即构成了具有竞争关系的经营者之间的联合，很有可能触犯反垄断法关于横向垄断的限制，例如联合定价。

专利联营中是否存在非必要专利？专利联营的组建往往基于特定技术标准或者明确商业目的，因此其中包含的专利应当是达成上述技术标准或者实现上述商业目的所必需的。与此相反，实践中专利权人如果在某个相关市场中持有关键专利，往往会尝试在关键专利的专利联营中加入非必要专利，以便将其在相关市场中的优势地位传导至其他市场。如果专利权人占有市场支配地位，这样的行为很有可能涉嫌搭售。

专利联营中是否交换了敏感信息？在专利联营的设立和运营中，专利权人不可避免地要将其经营信息进行汇总与整合。在这一过程中，需要确保所交换的信息仅涉及并仅用于专利联营之目的。如果专利权人之间存在竞争关系，则交换超出专利联营目的的敏感信息，例如价格、产量、市场划分等，将可能触犯反垄断法关于横向垄断的限制；在大部分情况下，专利权人之间往往存在上下游关系（例如其所拥有的专利分别涉及某种化合物的制作和加工，以便该化合物在经过处理后能被用于特定商业用途），则交换敏感信息可能触犯反垄断法关于纵向垄断的限制——需要注意，虽然反垄断法在纵向垄断下仅列举了转售价格维持，但反垄断执法机构仍然有权依据兜底条款认定其他排除、限制竞争的纵向协议。

专利联营中是否限制了专利权人独立进行技术活动的能力？专利制度设立的目的是鼓励技术进步与创新，但在某些专利联营中，专利权人在联营之外作为独立许可、研发、联营专利的能力受到限制，以便维持专利联营的领先地位、消除竞争。此类行为属于“限制购买新技术、新设备或者限制开发新技术、新产品”，为反垄断法所禁止。

專利授權協議的条款
对于占有市场支配地位的专利权人来说，在专利授权协议的谈判中通常也占有优势地位。因此，专利授权协议的条款更多地反映专利权人而不是被授权人的意志。在实践中，由于被授权人来自世界各地，因此专利授权协议选择的适用法律往往是专利权人所在国的法律，相应的争议解决条款往往也选择在该国的法院或者仲裁机构解决争议。这样的安排虽然可以大幅减少域外合同法适用的可能性与不确定性，却不能排除反垄断法的合规风险——因为各国反垄断法一般均有域外效力，包括中国在内。因此，如果专利权人与在中国的被授权人签约，或其专利对中国市场竞争产生影响，应当尤其注意协议条款中可能存在的下列问题：

协议中是否有价格维持条款？相较于专利联营中提及的横向联合定价，此处主要是指纵向价格维持，即专利权人对被授权人利用其专利而生产的下游产品价格进行干预的行为。许可费的数额取决于不同的计算方式，但下游产品的售价越高，通常意味着生产商（即被授权人）能获得越高的利润，则支付给专利权人的许可费就越高。实践中专利权人一般会避免协议中出现过于明显的价格维持条款，而是通过更为迂回的条款对被授权人的价格施加间接影响。这样的条款有可能触犯反垄断法。

（待续）