[A2k] IP-Watch: EU Threatens Taiwan With WTO Case Over Law On Compulsory Licences

[Rishab Aiyer Ghosh]

the comment from the taiwanese diplomat hints at something that is
perhaps not as widely known as it should be - many technical standards
are licensed under royalties that are not a percentage of the sale price
but a fixed amount per item. for DVD players, for instance, it's $21.
when manufacturers in china and taiwan bring prices down enormously, due
to cost / production innovation and competition, but nevertheless have
to pay the same amount in royalties per item (and thus a much greater
share of the sale price), it obviously doesn't look fair.

i'm not aware of any empirical data on the licensing practices (and
rates) for major technical standards - does anyone have references for
this?

On Thu, 2008-01-31 at 22:08 +0100, Thiru Balasubramaniam wrote:
> http://ip-watch.org/weblog/wp-trackback.php?p=3D907
> A Taiwanese diplomat familiar with the case said that producers on the
> island had encountered a =E2=80=9Cdramatic change=E2=80=9D because the in=
ternational
> price of CD-Rs has fallen considerably in recent years. Although the
> Taiwanese authorities had asked Philips to reassess the royalty rates
> it was charging to reflect this situation, the Dutch firm declined to
> do so, the diplomat said.