FRAND
Jane Lambert FRAND stands for "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory". It refers to the terms upon which the owner of a patent for an invention that is essential to a standard ("standard essential patent" or "SEP") should license its use. In Unwired Planet International Ltd v Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd and another [2017] EWHC 711 (Pat) (5 April 2017), the first and so far only case on FRAND in the United Kingdom, Mr Justice Birss explained what is meant by FRAND at para [83] of his judgment: "The point of FRAND in standard setting is fairly easy to understand. Standards exist so that different manufacturers can produce equipment which is interoperable with the result that the manufacturers compete with one another. So the phone makers compete in the market for phones and the public can select a phone from any supplier and be sure (for example) that if it is a 4G phone, it will work with any 4G network. As a society we want the b...