Lyse Brillouet on Managing SEPs and Open Standards

Lyse Brillouet has been the Chief Mental Property Officer and Senior Vice-President, Licensing, for the Orange Group since 2018. Within the newest episode of The SEP Sofa, Brillouet describes why mental property (IP) issues inside the Orange Group, which has over 130,000 staff worldwide.

IP for Orange is a crucial end result of assorted analysis and growth tasks. Orange is a know-how firm, with its primary goal being to carry know-how and associated service to its prospects. In some instances, Brillouet should stability the monetization of IP and the promotion of a brand new standardized know-how. One instance of that is Orange’s technique relating to patent swimming pools. Orange may be very a lot in favor of patent swimming pools and Brillouet believes they’re probably the most environment friendly solution to license Normal Important Patents (SEPs). In actual fact, in line with the IPlytics knowledge, no different SEP proprietor joins as many patent swimming pools as does Orange. In actual fact, Orange just isn’t solely a pool member, however usually the founding father of the patent pool program. Brillouet explains that patent swimming pools are joined by corporations with totally different goals and that it’s all the time a trade-off between the quantity of royalties a patent pool ought to ask for and selling and making certain the vast adoption of a know-how customary. Swimming pools not solely have the operate of making SEP royalty revenues, however they’re additionally instruments to supply one cease market entry and due to this fact to facilitate the adoption of the know-how customary.

IPlytics data on submitted 5G requirements contributions to the 3GPP (Era Partnership Challenge), the usual group that develops 5G, reveals that Orange ranks within the prime 20 worldwide corporations. Nevertheless, when counting 5G declared patents owned by Orange, they solely rank within the prime 50. In different phrases, whereas Orange is likely one of the strongest 5G know-how contributors within the growth of the 5G requirements on the 3GPP, Orange information patents or SEPs at a a lot decrease charge. Brillouet explains that, for Orange, requirements growth and the contribution on the requirements working teams just isn’t about submitting SEPs. It’s rather more about creating broadly used and accepted requirements. SEPs for Orange are the natural end result of that course of. The return on funding when spending analysis and growth on applied sciences like 5G just isn’t the royalty revenue from SEPs. Or, put in a different way, SEP royalties will not be the principle return they see from requirements growth. So, Brillouet’s job as main the Orange IP and licensing division just isn’t solely about creating returns but additionally about discovering methods SEP licensing will be solved effectively to facilitate the usage of the requirements fairly than blocking it. Orange sometimes declares solely these patents on the public European Telecommunications Requirements Institute (ETSI) IPR databases which might be verified important, as they all the time declare chart earlier than they declare. Trying on the IPlytics rankings of declared 5G patents, this might be the explanation Orange’s SEP portfolio seems a lot smaller than the over-declared 5G patent portfolios of another corporations in a 5G rating.

Brillouet believes that requirements will probably be adopted by a broad vary of industries, going past automotive to the broader web of issues (IoT). Orange cooperates and gives know-how options to many different IoT corporations. These applied sciences additionally embody requirements which might be topic to SEPs. SEP licensing is new for a lot of corporations working within the IoT industry- Brillouet is optimistic that SEP licensing challenges for IoT will probably be resolved very quickly. Right here, first collective SEP licensing packages tailor-made to the IoT market have been launched final 12 months and Brillouet believes that it is a step into the suitable path.The partnership with corporations that allow connectivity applied sciences is a part of an important technique to construct an ecosystem on prime of standardized applied sciences.

Brillouet additionally discusses the automotive {industry}, one of many first industries that absolutely built-in IoT applied sciences, and makes use of requirements akin to 4G and 5G. Nevertheless, Brillouet says connectivity in automobiles has not reached its fullest potential and she or he expects to see much more. But additionally, when she thinks about different applied sciences, she says it’s not solely requirements and SEPs but additionally different patents which aren’t topic to requirements that defend applied sciences that Orange gives to the automotive {industry}. Right here, she names examples akin to shows or leisure applied sciences for automobiles.

Brillouet additionally feedback on the most recent EU Commission proposal for a SEP regulation. She feels that organising a brand new SEP register or database for present requirements makes little sense. If something, a brand new register of SEPs is critical for future requirements. The rest wouldn’t be possible and too expensive for her group, whereas she wouldn’t anticipate an enormous impact for her SEP licensing success.

In her remaining remarks, Brillouet highlights the success of the Orange IP division as being grounded within the stability of assorted actions and its integration into the day-to-day enterprise of the corporate. She emphasizes the significance of accessibility, each internally and externally, and the necessity to combine numerous expertise, past authorized experience, into the IP division. Lastly, she underscores the importance of bringing worth to prospects as a precedence over focusing solely on IP rights.