Hosted by the Intellectual Property Centre of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and supported by Siemens Ltd., China, the Seminar on Patent and Standardization was held at the Novotel Peace Hotel of Beijing on October 27, 2010.

The seminar mainly discussed two topics, namely, Government roles on IP & Standards and Patent pool. Representatives from China Qualcomm Incorporated, Siemens Ltd., China, Research in Motion, Nokia and ZTE Corporation attended the seminar and delivered speeches.

Vice President of Legal and Government Affairs of China Qualcomm Incorporated Yan Xuan gave a speech on the topic of Successful Government Practices in International Standardization.

He concluded that “International standards benefit everyone; IPR protection and licensing are critical components. The market should decide what standards are voluntarily developed and deployed. Governments should protect and enforce IPR and refrain from interference with IPR/technology transfer. IPR owners need incentives to engage in R&D and ability to earn return on investment or there will be no value chain or down-stream benefits. This approach leads to robust standards, creation of a value chain, better products and services, competitive manufacturers, domestic employment and technology transfer, and enhanced consumer choices.”

Head of Corporate Intellectual Property and Standardization Affairs Siemens Ltd., China, Sven Wehser, illustrated the pros and cons of patent pool licensing. The pros include “facilitating equal access to licenses to all potential licensees, speeding up access to technology, reducing the transaction costs for both licensees and licensors, reducing the cumulative royalty fees, nondiscriminatory access to licenses and providing valuable source of information for interested users of the technology;” while the cons center around the “long time to establish a patent pool, commission for pool administrator and cost of patent evaluations and anti-trust issues.”