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On December 6, 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced a request for public comments on a new “Draft Policy Statement on Licensing Negotiations and Remedies for Standards-Essential Patents Subject to Voluntary F/RAND Commitments” (“Draft Statement”). The Draft Statement is a joint policy statement of the DOJ Antitrust Division, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”), and National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”), issued in response to President Biden’s July 9, 2021 Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy. Therein, the President encouraged the Attorney General and the Secretary of Commerce to consider whether to revise the joint DOJ-USPTO-NIST 2019 “Policy Statement on Remedies for Standards-Essential Patents Subject to Voluntary F/RAND Commitments” (“2019 Statement”), which, in turn, had replaced a withdrawn 2013 DOJ-USPTO joint policy statement by the same title (“2013 Statement”). All three statements address whether and under what circumstances the owners of standard essential patents (“SEPs”) who agree to license essential technology on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (“FRAND”) terms should be entitled to injunctive relief. The Draft Statement signals a return to the general policy of the 2013 Statement, leaning against the availability of injunctive relief where certain implementers—so called “willing licensees”—agree to take licenses on FRAND terms. The Draft Statement does, however, set out various circumstances in which an implementer who is unwilling to take such a license could face injunctive remedies (or the possibility of enhanced damages for willful infringement).

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