Safeguarding Confidential Business Information ISN’T Anti-competitive – Tele-Talk

Ten years ago, only 12 out of 100 people in India experienced phone connections. Since then the Indian telecom market has leapfrogged attaining a teledensity of 80% now, and active smartphone subscribers crossing 220 million. One of the primary factors for Indian telecom revolution can be mapped to the option of technologies to indigenous low priced smartphone manufacturers.

The dichotomy in the Indian telecom industry is that despite the huge income potential because of the growing quantity of subscribers and penetration of mobile technology in rural area, the propensity to innovate in mobile communication technologies is abysmally low. In the domestic market, top three Indian manufacturers (Micromax, Intex and Lava) hold over 30% of market share.

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However, they do not keep any patents in India on chipsets, processors, communication systems and other primary mobile technologies; and they hold only a handful of patents and that on software related to audio and keyboards too. Although Indian companies have design studios, their focus is on hardware development (such as casing, batteries and chargers) and additional localization of components imported from elsewhere.

Therefore, the dependence is understandably on more innovative and research-oriented companies that have patent portfolios for technical criteria such as 3G, 4G and LTE. The holders of the standard-essential patents (SEP) have to invest in provide them on acceptable and non-discriminatory license conditions to device manufacturers who cannot afford to miss taking part in the great mobile trend. The difference in understanding what constitutes a reasonable come back on these essential patented systems has led them to knock on the doorways of courts and competition commission rate.

While the SEP holder is fighting against patent infringement and looking to get suitable return on its investment, devise manufacturers are desperately trying to verify anticompetitive behavior on the part of the patent holder for seeking extreme royalties. Homegrown cellular phone sellers, Micromax and Intex, ‘up to date’ the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in middle 2013 of anticompetitive methods by Ericsson, that was prima facie found by the fee. This was following the parties individually didn’t signal a patent licensing contract with negotiations spanning 3-4 years not yielding any result. The main quarrels CCI relied upon were (1) thrusting manufacturers with a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), and (2) seeking royalties which were not standard across ‘likewise situated’ players.

The antitrust watchdog seems to have erred on both counts. It acted in haste by not considering the interim arrangement ordered by the Delhi High Court, which kept that NDAs are sine and legitimate qua non atlanta divorce attorneys licensing deal, particularly in patent licensing. NDAs become necessary safeguards for just about any party that is reliant on high-tech inventions and, by extension, on holding, managing or using intellectual property rights embedded in those inventions.

NDAs are antecedent to any negotiation process, and are a flexible and valuable tool for both licensee and licensor. The discussion paper recently released by the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) on standard essential patents seems to have followed CCIs order using a gestated notion of “NDAs being abusive”. So perhaps no judicial body in US far, that includes a a lot more progressed jurisprudence in this area, has found NDA-based patent licensing agreement to be anticompetitive. Finding NDAs per se abusive appears to be overstretching the contours of abusive musical instruments and anticompetitive behavior. It really is essential for DIPP to totally understand the advantages of non-disclosure contracts between businesses getting into patent licensing deals concerning standard essential patents.

The current government is striving to improve the telecom sector and has assured to implement measures to enhance ease of doing business in India by getting foreign investors and innovative companies. The controversy around non-disclosure contracts being misconstrued as anticompetitive and abusive in the framework of SEPs is misconceived and decision manufacturers need to understand the grave implications of the.

Zemedeneh, whose company has suggested Uganda and Rwanda on their national providers, said Kenya Airways should partner with its Ethiopian rival to take on big international service providers that control at least 80% of traffic in and out of the continent. One of Kenya’s main competition on these routes is Dutch carrier KLM, which can be an collateral partner also, Fadugba said.