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Service Challenges, Business Opportunities, and Regulatory Responses in the Postal Sector
This edited volume includes original essays by prominent researchers and practitioners in the field of postal and delivery economics, originally presented at the 31st Conference on Postal and Delivery Economics held in Gdańsk,...
The CDS publishes this position statement in response to the UK IPO’s public consultation on Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) . We are looking forward to sharing and debating our views at the upcoming Florence Conference on SEPs (9–10 October).
We are excited to convene in Florence with policymakers, legal scholars, industry experts and implementers to explore these issues in depth. If you will be there, reach out to us.
On 15 July 2025 the UK Intellectual Property Office opened a consultation on measures to improve transparency and dispute resolution in the SEP ecosystem.
The Centre for a Digital Society (CDS) welcomes the IPO’s consultative approach and offers an evidence-based response grounded in interdisciplinary research.
CDS cautions that interventions must avoid fragmenting international technology markets or imposing disproportionate compliance burdens; soft-law guidance and narrowly targeted, issue-specific regulation are preferable to broad, prescriptive regimes.
Of the measures under review, the proposed Rate Determination Track (RDT) raises the greatest concern: although portfolio-wide FRAND determinations may appear efficient in principle, practical obstacles (parallel foreign litigation, contested validity/essentiality, appeal risks and potential competition-law exposure) mean the RDT’s benefits are uncertain unless its scope, standing and territorial effect are tightly constrained.
By contrast, proportionate measures—enhancing the patent register with reciprocal, limited disclosures and adopting a SEP-specific pre-action protocol modelled on the CJEU’s Huawei v ZTE negotiation framework, are promising: they can reduce information asymmetries, encourage negotiated settlement, and preserve procedural fairness if coupled with robust confidentiality and proportionality safeguards.
CDS recommends prioritising balanced transparency, reciprocal obligations, and international coordination while keeping regulatory intervention minimal and targeted.