Intellectual Property Ownership as a Determinant Factor in Legal Competitive Assessments [archived]

Summary Top

The training on intellectual property ownership as a determinant factor in legal competitive assessments was held on 04-06 July 2018 at RIU Pravets Golf & SPA Resort, Pravets. 24 national judges attended the training.

The training took a step further the idea of legitimate business practices in the domain of exclusive ownership and open innovation in intellectual property as opposed to traditional processes of encapsulating innovation within a company’s internal structure. 

This training considered the role of IP ownership as a determinant factor in legal competitive assessments. Within 3 consecutive days judges the Supreme Administrative Court, the appellate courts and the district courts, discussed the relationship between innovation and competition in dynamic markets, the economic and legal constraints arising from IP ownership, the role of licence agreements, compulsory licencing and technology transfer block exemptions, etc. The training also referred to the link between intellectual property and online markets by presenting the legal challenges of online distribution of digital content and cross-border management of intellectual property and will consider the advantages and disadvantages of open innovation for competition.

According to participants’ feedback, the strongest accents in the training were its practical approach, the timing of the event with respect to the hot topics an case studies discussed, and speakers’ expertise and experience. The quality of the training materials and the overall event organisation were also positively assessed.

Agenda Top

Day 1, 04 July 2018 (Wednesday)

Day 2, 05 July 2018 (Thursday)

Day 3, 06 July 2018 (Friday)

Venue Top

The training on intellectual property ownership as a determinant factor in legal competitive assessments was held on 04-06 July 2018 at RIU Pravets Golf & SPA Resort, Pravets. 

LIBRe Foundation provided each participant in the training with hotel accommodation (3 nights for the period 03.07.2018 – 05.07.2018, including breakfast and tourist tax for a single-room accommodation), as well as lunches, dinners, and coffee breaks for each training day, in accordance with the training schedule. The participant package included also free use of the thermal zone, SPA centre, inside swimming pool, fitness centre, and Internet.

Each participant was reimbursed for their travel costs.

Speakers Top

Arina Gorbatyuk is a PhD Fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) at the KU Leuven Center for IT and IP Law (CiTiP). Arina writes her PhD thesis entitled ‘Rethinking IP Ownership in the Context of Open Innovation’ under the supervision of Prof. Geertrui Van Overwalle (CiTiP) and Prof. Esther van Zimmeren (University of Antwerp). In her research she focuses on the challenges collaborating partners encounter while allocating the ownership of jointly developed IP, in particular patents and trade secrets. Arina joined the centre in October 2012 as a researcher within the interdisciplinary research program ‘Open Innovation: The Interaction between Legal Architectures & Innovation Strategies’ of the СiTiP and the Department of Managerial Economics, Strategy and Innovation (MSI, KU Leuven). From October 2012 until September 2015 she was also involved in a consultancy project for the European Space Agency (ESA) on IP Ownership and Rights of Use in ESA. In 2013 and 2014 she coached a KU Leuven team for the ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition in Paris. Since January 2015 Arina co-coordinates a course ‘Problems of IP and ICT in Practice’ of the LL.M. in IP Rights and ICT Law.

Amandine Léonard obtained her Master of Laws with a specialization in business law (cum laude) in 2012 from the University of Liège. In 2013 she completed the LLM program of the Liège Competition and Innovation Institute (LCII) in European Competition law and Intellectual Property (magna cum laude). Her particular fields of interests are: the fundamental rationale and objective of intellectual property laws (patent, copyright and trademark), the approach adopted by the United States and European countries regarding intellectual property laws and their limitations and exceptions, as well as the interface between competition law and intellectual property law. Since October 2013, Amandine is a legal researcher at the KU Leuven Centre for IT & IP Law. In January 2015, she obtained a PhD Scholarship from “Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship” (VLAIO) to work on the topic of “Abusive patent litigation in Europe – The prohibition of abuse of rights and patent trolls”. During her PhD she will investigate patent litigation strategies adopted by patent holders both in the currently spread patent litigation system of Europe, and in the future Unitary Patent Package system.

Dimitar Iliev is an expert in Competition Law and Intellectual Property Rights with extensive experience in both private and public sector and specializations in EU Law and European litigation. He worked as an expert at the Bulgarian Commission on Protection of Competition for over four years (2012-2016); and continued his career in the Patent Office of the Republic in Bulgaria. Currently, he is a national expert in EUIPO in Alicante, Spain.

Presentations Top

Day 1, 4 July 2018

• Relationship between Innovation and Competition in Dynamic Markets, Dimitar Iliev (available only in Bulgarian)
• License Agreements and Competition Law, Dimitar Iliev (available only in Bulgarian)
• Competitive Restraints and (Unilateral) Exploitation of IP Rights (Article 102 TFEU), Amandine Leonard

Day 2, 5 July 2018

• Online Distribution of Digital Content, Dimitar Iliev (available only in Bulgarian)
• Injunctive Relief for Holders of Standard Essential Patents (SEPs), FRAND Licensing Terms and the Role of Standard Setting Organizations (SSO), Amandine Leonard
• Relevant Case Law and Aspects of Digital Monopolies (e.g. Tying, Price Fixing, etc.), Dimitar Iliev (available only in Bulgarian)

Day 3, 6 July 2018

• Open Innovation - Inside-out, Outside-in and Coupled Open Innovation Processes. Motives and Risks to Engage in Each Type of Process, Arina Gorbatyuk
• Article 101 TFEU and Open Innovation, Arina Gorbatyuk

Relevant Case Law

• CJEU Case Law (Discussions by D. Iliev)
• CJEU Case Law on competitive constraints and (unilateral) exploitation of IPR (Discussions by Amandine Leonard under Module 3)

Video (by Modules) Top

Day 1, 4 July 2018

• Relationship between Innovation and Competition in Dynamic Markets, Dimitar Iliev (available only in Bulgarian)

• License Agreements and Competition Law (part 1), Dimitar Iliev (available only in Bulgarian)

• License Agreements and Competition Law (part 2), Dimitar Iliev (available only in Bulgarian)

• Competitive Restraints and (Unilateral) Exploitation of IP Rights (Article 102 TFEU), Amandine Leonard. Note: To access the video, one must have a username and password. For questions, please contact the project team.

Day 2, 5 July 2018

• Online Distribution of Digital Content (part 1), Dimitar Iliev (available only in Bulgarian)

• Online Distribution of Digital Content (part 2), Dimitar Iliev (available only in Bulgarian)

• Injunctive Relief for Holders of Standard Essential Patents (SEPs), FRAND Licensing Terms and the Role of Standard Setting Organizations (SSO), Amandine Leonard. Note: To access the video, one must have a username and password. For questions, please contact the project team.

• Relevant Case Law and Aspects of Digital Monopolies (e.g. Tying, Price Fixing, etc.), Dimitar Iliev (available only in Bulgarian)

Day 3, 6 July 2018

• Open Innovation - Inside-out, Outside-in and Coupled Open Innovation Processes. Motives and Risks to Engage in Each Type of Process, Arina Gorbatyuk. Note: To access the video, one must have a username and password. For questions, please contact the project team.

• Article 101 TFEU and Open Innovation (part 1), Arina Gorbatyuk. Note: To access the video, one must have a username and password. For questions, please contact the project team.

• Article 101 TFEU and Open Innovation (part 2), Arina Gorbatyuk. Note: To access the video, one must have a username and password. For questions, please contact the project team.

Training Proceedings Top

"Intellectual Property Ownership as a Determinant Factor in Legal Competitive Assessments" Training Proceedings (2018) presents the spakers' and project team's efforts to further enhance the training conducted in July 2018 by providing additional materials and guidance on the topics discussed. The training proceedings include:

'Relationship between Innovation and Competition in Dynamic Markets' by Dimitar Iliev (only in Bulgarian)

'License Аgreements and Article 101 TFEU' by Dimitar Iliev (only in Bulgarian)

'License Аgreements and Article 102 TFEU' by Dimitar Iliev (only in Bulgarian)

'Competitive Restraints and (Unilateral) Exploitation of IP Rights (Article 102 TFEU)' by Amandine Leonard

'Online Distribution of Digital Content' by Dimitar Iliev (only in Bulgarian)

'Injunctive Relief for Holders of Standard Essential Patents (SEPs), Fair Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) Licensing Terms and the Role of Standard Setting Organizations (SSO)' by Amandine Leonard

'Relevant Case Law and Aspects of Digital Monopolies' by Dimitar Iliev (only in Bulgarian)

'Open Innovation and Related Agreements' by Arina Gorbatyuk

'Open Innovation and EU Competition Law' by Arina Gorbatyuk

The texts are selected and prepared for publishing by the CONNECTOR project team in the face of Alexandra Tsvetkova, Project Manager.

The preparation and publication of these proceedings is organized and coordinated by LIBRe Foundation.

Further Information Top

For more information on the agenda and the overall organization of the event or with respect to published training materials, you could contact: