1. The Commission has called for “a stronger role for standardisation in support of innovation” and commented that standardisation is “increasingly important, in particular in the ICT domain”. See Final Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament and the European Economic and Social Committee, “Towards an Increased Contribution from Standardisation to Innovation in Europe”, COM(2008) 133, 11 March 2008, and Draft Position Paper, “Standardisation, Competition and Intellectual Property Rights”, ICT/SC (2008) No 55. In November 2008, the Commission held a one-day IPR Workshop in Brussels on IPRs and ICT standards.
2. European Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes, “Being Open About Standards”, SPEECH/08/317, 10 June 2008.
3. According to the ETSI IPR Policy, essential “as applied to IPR means that it is not possible on technical (but not commercial) grounds, taking into account normal technical practice and the state of the art generally available at the time of standardization, to make, sell, lease, otherwise dispose of, repair, use or operate EQUIPMENT or METHODS which comply with a STANDARD without infringing that IPR. For the avoidance of doubt in exceptional cases where a STANDARD can only be implemented by technical solutions, all of which are infringements of IPRs, all such IPRs shall be considered ESSENTIAL.”
4. See the joint press release of Broadcom, Ericsson, NEC, Nokia, Panasonic Mobile Communications and Texas Instruments dated 28 October 2005, available at http://www.broadcom.com/press/release.php?id=774809&industry_id=4. Nokia withdrew its complaint in July 2008 and Broadcom settled with Qualcomm in April 2009—see the respective press releases at http://www.nokia.com/A4136001?newsid=1238093 and http://www.broadcom.com/press/release.php?id=s379764&industry_id=4 (all last accessed on 19 June 2009).