Washington, D.C. – Save Our Standards, a broad-based coalition of innovators, small businesses, associations, academics, and consumer groups dedicated to the reinforcement of fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing terms for standard-essential patents, joined ACT | The App Association, Allied for Startups, the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), Engine, High-Tech Innovators Alliance (HTIA) and TechNet in urging the office of the U.S. Trade Representative to promote supply chain resilience by addressing SEP licensing abuses.
In a letter to the U.S. Trade Representative, industry leaders from the telecommunications, semiconductor, modules, cloud, and network infrastructure sectors write, “Without exception, we rely on resilient supply chains regardless of the industries we innovate in across the U.S. and global economies… It is now well known that certain SEP holders systematically leverage their dominant position in controlling the ability to use technical interoperability standards in order to force unreasonable terms and excessive royalty rates despite their voluntary commitments to provide fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licenses.”