PRESS RELEASE: Save Our Standards Announces Policy Priorities for New Administration

January 17, 2025, Washington D.C. – Today, the Save Our Standards coalition released its policy priorities for the upcoming Trump administration, calling on policymakers to protect American companies from the abuse of standard essential patents (SEPs). 

In a memo to the new administration, the coalition writes, “Collaboratively developed voluntary standards, such as 5G and Wi-Fi, are what products like mobile phones, medical devices, cars, and advanced manufacturing systems rely on to interoperate. But innovative American manufacturers who make products that use these standards are being extorted by weaponization of the legal system here and abroad by entities claiming to hold patents that cover the standard…. It is critical that the Trump Administration stop foreign companies and abusive patent holders from unfairly and unreasonably holding standardized technology hostage and depriving American businesses and citizens of their benefits.”

Specifically, Save Our Standards calls on policymakers to: 

  • Protect American businesses and prevent foreign interests from driving up costs for Americans.
  • Strengthen American investment in cutting-edge industries through predictability in standard essential patent (SEP) licensing. 
  • Deter SEP abusers that weaponize their SEPs to harm American businesses.

Save Our Standards also led a letter to the new administration to urge the protection of SEPs, signed by ACT | The App Association, Alliance for Automotive Innovations, Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), Center for Democracy and Technology, Engine, High Tech Inventors Alliance (HTIA), National Retail Federation (NRF), Public Knowledge, Software Information Industry Association (SIIA), and TechNet. “The Trump Administration should ensure that these patent holders comply with the voluntary but irrevocable commitments they made up-front during standards development to license their patents essential to these standards on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms,”  the organizations write.

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Save Our Standards is a broad-based coalition of innovators, small businesses, associations, academics, and consumer groups dedicated to reinforcing the FRAND licensing commitment and its important role in technical standards to enable competition and innovation that directly benefits consumers. We work to educate decision-makers and stakeholders on policies that allow all innovators to thrive through pro-competitive practices and the reinforcement of fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing terms for standard-essential patents.