Licensing IP embodied in standards, Part 2

Failure to disclose patents According to ANSI, only certain, limited sanctions are appropriate when a patent owner fails correctly to identify and disclose patent rights embodied into a standard until after the standard has been adopted. (This is the pattern of conduct that led to the US Federal Trade Commission’s 1995 case against Dell Computer after the 1992 development and adoption of the VESA bus, and to the current outcries against Microsoft over its patent covering the W3C cascading style sheet standard.) Actually, ANSI does not consider them sanctions. Rather, it says that “there are incentives built into the system to prevent a company from keeping silent until the standard is finalized and then, after the standard becomes a de facto marketplace standard, announce its patent rights.” ANSI says the existing and appropriate sanctions/incentives are