Abuse Of Dominance Through Standard Essential Patents: Evaluating Frand Licensing Under Indian Competition Law
- IJLLR Journal
- Apr 13
- 1 min read
Ishika Jain, Amity Law School, Amity University, Noida
Dr. Meenu Sharma, Amity Law School, Amity University, Noida
ABSTRACT
A significant intersection between intellectual property law and competition law is formed through the use of Standard Essential Patents (SEPs). The primary objective of patent law is to protect inventors from exclusive rights, while competition law seeks to prevent the misuse of market power by limiting innovation. When patented technologies are included in industry standards, companies must get permission from the owners of standard- essential patents to make products that follow those standards. This reliance can lead to unfair business practices, such as excessive fee demands, discriminatory rules governing technology use, and the misuse of legal action to benefit the company. To reduce these risks, groups that set standards ask patent holders to allow others to use their patents under fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory conditions. However, conflicts often happen about whether companies are following FRAND rules when they license standard essential patents. In India, such conflicts have become more common and are now primarily addressed under the abuse of dominance provisions of the Competition Act, 2002. This paper looks at how Indian competition laws control the way standard essential patents (SEPs) are licensed and checks if the current legal system is good at stopping unfair competition practices. The paper says that even though Indian competition authorities know about the risks in licensing standard-essential patents, there is still no clear set of rules to decide if a company is following FRAND terms, which makes it hard to tell what is legal.
