STANDARDS ESSENTIAL UTILITY MODELS.

More than one hundred countries, including major economies such as China, Japan, Germany, and Brazil, offer a form of innovation protection known as the utility model (UM). Unlike patents, UMs are generally not examined substantively, have shorter terms, and vary in their enforceability in litigation. Yet UMs, like patents, are increasingly being declared as "essential" to global industry standards, licensed together with standards essential patents (SEPs), and now even enforced in litigation. This study finds that nearly 1,000 standards essential utility models (SEUMs) have been declared essential to broadly adopted industry standards. And though far less than other SEPs, SEUMs have been subject to litigation in China and Germany, and there appears to be no structural barrier to their litigation in other jurisdictions. These findings raise questions concerning the legal requirement to disclose and license SEUMs, the value of SEUMs for purposes of calculating FRAND royalty rates for individual firm portfolios and for determining top-down aggregated royalty rates for standards, as well as larger questions concerning the use of UMs to protect complex technological inventions that are also covered by patents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]