An essential patent or standard-essential patent is a patent that claims an invention that must be used to comply with a technical standard. Standards organizations, therefore, often require members disclose and grant licenses to their patents and pending patent applications that cover a standard that the organization is developing. Failure to license an essential patent may be a form of patent misuse.
If a standards organization fails to get licenses to all patents that are essential to complying with a standard, owners of the unlicensed patents may demand or sue for royalties from companies that adopt the standard. This happened with to the GIF and JPEG standards, for example.
Determining which patents are essential to a particular standard can be complex.
Famous quotes containing the words essential and/or patent:
“The repossession by women of our bodies will bring far more essential change to human society than the seizing of the means of production by workers.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The cigar-box which the European calls a “lift” needs but to be compared with our elevators to be appreciated. The lift stops to reflect between floors. That is all right in a hearse, but not in elevators. The American elevator acts like the man’s patent purge—it works”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)