A Federal Judge in Washington State Widens an IP Bottleneck

An opinion by Judge James Robart in Washington state constitutes a long overdue clarification of a key IP concept, the “reasonable and nondiscriminatory” (aka RAND) royalty rate for patents essential to some widely-adopted industry standard (like USB or WifI). Couched as “Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law” in a dispute between Microsoft and Motorola, Judge Robart’s opinion sets out a logical and viable way to compute a RAND royalty rate for any technology in an industry where an important standard has been established and the patented technology is essential for achieving that standard. “Judge Robart recognizes the public benefit of standards and the public interest in ensuring that royalty rates for standardized technology enable broad implementation,” the author writes.