International patent conference

Norman discussed the Licensing Executive Society (LES) conference that will be held in Moscow. In short, a number of prominent international figures, including the Chief Judge of the Federal Circuit and Direct General of WIPO, are meeting in Russia with a particular focus on "making the world a better place through patent licensing".

I wanted to respond because I thought the choice of venue was odd. Wouldn't it make more sense to have this conference in the U.S. or somewhere else where patent lawsuits are a well-known problem? To be honest, I couldn't find an explanation other than that LES International appears to rotate the location of its conference, with member societies in different countries.

There are many different countries listed next to the speakers. As one would expect, they have different perspectives. For example, Qoros Automotive from China appeared to be interested in licensing to minimize infringement risk. Siemens suggested that patent litigation and enforcement was rapidly increasing in China.

MIT was interested in patent licensing and takes startup equity instead of cash. However, over the last 20 years, on average 87% of universities did not make enough money from patent licensing to covering their licensing administrative and legal expenses. I suspect that MIT and other top research universities are in the top 13% that do.

Compared to expensive litigation, I think it's obvious that licensing is better for society. I think the benefits are especially apparent for large companies that can cross-license with little burden.

However, I wonder if aggressive licensing could be a problem for startups that cannot afford licenses. I doubt many patent owners, MIT and other universities that encourage startups excluded, would be willing to negotiate equity investment in place of cash. And from the perspective of startup, is it fair to permanently give up equity early on when the business model is in flux and future use of the patented technology uncertain?