After causing one of the biggest rows between the US and Europe in the telecommunications world, ETSI, the Nice, France-based European Telecommunications Standards Institute, has decided to climb down and abandon its Intellectual Property Rights Undertaking, which would have required that its members license their patented technologies under reasonable and non-discriminatory conditions if they were used to implement the Institute’s technical standards. The Institute’s Intellectual Property Rights was formally approved in March 1993, but not implemented due to a formal complaint made by the Computer & Business Equipment Manufacturer’s Association to the European Commission the following July (CI No 2,227). The row escalated last March, when the US Justice Department joined the fray on behalf of the manufacturers (CI No 2,381). An attempt to mediate between both parties was made last April, when a Special Committee was established by the standard’s body to resolve outstanding issues. However, it was only able to find a partial compromise between the two camps. Due to the impasse, Institute members were asked to vote at its twentieth General Assembly last July on a motion to reject the udertaking; the just-released returns from the ballot show that 88% of members supported the measure. Sources close to the Institute say the majority voted in this way chiefly because the market is reticent to consider ETSI standards as long as the Intellectual Property Rights issue is unsolved. The Institute says that a new edition of the undertaking which will not contain any contentious issues is in preparation.
