Home > Announcements > Announcements > Standard Essential Patents Portal Site
Main content starts here.
The spread of the Internet of Things (IoT) is continuing to cause major changes in licensing negotiations involving Standard Essential Patents (SEPs). Due to shorter product life cycles and an increasing number of patents, it has become much more difficult for companies in technological areas such as telecommunications to assess all of the relevant SEPs for their products prior to commercialization.
Various aspects of licensing negotiations are also changing. SEP licensing negotiations in the Information and Communication Technology (“ICT”) field, which traditionally took place chiefly among ICT companies, are now often undertaken between ICT companies and firms in other industries. Consequently, it is becoming harder to resolve disputes through cross-licensing. In addition, divergent perspectives on licensing rates are fostering unease over SEP-related negotiations and disputes.
As a result of these developments, the Japan Patent Office (JPO) created the "Guide to Licensing Negotiations Involving Standard Essential Patents" in June 2018. The Guide aims to enhance transparency and predictability, facilitate negotiations between rights holders and implementers (patent users), and help prevent or quickly resolve disputes concerning SEPs.
In response to a growing number of court decisions and disputes between different industries, the JPO subsequently revised its "Guide to Licensing Negotiations Involving Standard Essential Patents" in July 2022. In doing so, it took into account the recent court decisions and latest trends in various countries, as well as the opinions received from Japan and other countries through public consultations.
With SEP licensing negotiations continuing to become transformed, the JPO plans to review and revise this guide as appropriate. In doing so, it will strive to maintain an open and transparent process so that the guide will continue to evolve as a “living” document.
"Guide to Licensing Negotiations Involving Standard Essential Patents(2nd Edition)"(PDF: 922KB)
The recent spread of the Internet of Things (IoT) has led to changes such as licensing negotiations conducted by companies across industries. Participation of such companies has made it difficult to solve problems through such conventional methods as cross-licensing within the same industry. In addition, opinions have become increasingly divided regarding the essentiality of patents, and reasonable license fees in the negotiations.
In particular, disputes between parties over the determination of whether or not patented inventions subject to licensing negotiations are SEPs would be difficult to resolve without outside assistance.
If such determinations were to be made by the JPO from a fair and neutral perspective, licensing negotiations and dispute resolution between such parties would therefore become greatly enhanced.
In order to provide clarification regarding the operation of the “Hantei” (advisory opinion) system, the JPO prepared the ‘Manual of “Hantei” (Advisory Opinion) for Essentiality Check’ for practitioners. The manual was published on March 28, 2018, and operations commenced on April 1, 2018.
In accordance with the enactment of the Act on the Partial Revision of the Unfair Competition Prevention Act and other acts (Act No. 33 of May 30, 2018), the JPO published the revised manual on June 26, 2019 for the purpose of responding to the enactment of the revised act and making the operation more user-friendly. Operations under the revised manual (hereinafter referred to as “new operations”) commenced on July 1, 2019.
For more information on the “Hantei” (advisory opinion) system, see also here.
As many disputes have continued to occur since releasing the "Guide to Licensing Negotiations Involving Standard Essential Patents", the JPO has carried out ongoing studies of domestic and overseas developments with regard to SEPs in order to continue updating the guide.
* Visit the following link to see the full version of reports on these studies (in Japanese):
標準必須特許ポータルサイト
Sep. 29, 2017
Invitation to Contribute to Guidelines for Licensing Negotiations Involving Standard Essential Patents (SEPs)
Mar. 28, 2018
Publication of the ‘Manual of “Hantei” (Advisory Opinion) for Essentiality Check’
Apr. 1, 2018
Implementation of the Operation of Advisory Opinion System to Determine Standard Essentiality
Jun. 9, 2018
Announcement for release of “Guide to Licensing Negotiations involving Standard Essential Patents”
Jun. 29, 2018
Mock International Arbitration - Toward Early Dispute Resolution of Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) in the 5G Era - Held in Tokyo
Jul.1, 2019
New Operation based on the ‘Manual of “Hantei” (Advisory Opinion) for Essentiality Check (Revised Version)’
Feb. 14, 2020
Seminar “Strategies and Global Solutions Using International Arbitration and Mediation for Intellectual Property Disputes on SEP Licensing and FRAND” Held in Tokyo
May 9, 2022
Invitation for Public Comments on the Draft Revision of “Guide to Licensing Negotiations involving Standard Essential Patents”
May 19, 2022
JPO SEP Symposium 2022
Jul. 19, 2022
Announcement for revision of “Guide to Licensing Negotiations involving Standard Essential Patents”
Policy Planning and Research Division
Policy Planning and Coordination Department
Japan Patent Office
E-mail:PA0920@jpo.go.jp