What have been Sisvel’s biggest highlights over the past year?

There are so many to choose from as it has been an incredibly busy period on many fronts. We have welcomed a number of new licensees and licensors to our pools and invested in a major educational push targeted at implementers of the technologies covered by our Cellular IoT programme. This has been very well received in the industry and by policy makers and is something of which we are very proud. 

There are two specific deals I would like to mention.

• The one we announced with RPX in January 2024, which saw us conclude a transaction related to video codecs, providing 16 companies a licence to patents made available by 20 world-class innovators through our Video Coding Licensing Platform. Given the number of moving pieces, it was a complex deal to organise, but thanks to everyone’s determination to find solutions, the outcome delivered tremendous transactional efficiencies.
• The agreement with Nordic Semiconductor announced in May 2024 for the licensing of SEPs reading on LTE-M and NB-IoT cellular technology. The deal provides a simple, efficient way for IoT device makers to obtain end-product licences from more than 30 patent owners holding LTE-M and NB-IoT SEPs available via our Cellular IoT pool, through Nordic as the cellular module supplier.

These transactions are clear indicators not only of Sisvel’s expertise across multiple verticals but also of our commitment to flexible, efficient dealmaking. Neither was easy and I am so proud of the teams that got these agreements over the line. I am not sure that anyone else in our space could have done it. 

We were also involved in several high-value transactions in which we acted as an intermediary, bringing companies together to conclude licensing deals – but these are confidential. However, they again demonstrate our ability to secure significant wins for the organisations we work with on both the buy and sell side. 

Finally, we have made a series of senior hires into the business to strengthen its pool of expertise even further. In March, Steve Jedlinski was appointed as our general counsel, joining us from Holland & Knight where he was a partner in the firm’s IP group. More recently, Jukka Nihtilä joined us as head of business development. Jukka was previously head of business development, multimedia and new segments at Nokia Technologies and is widely recognised as a major figure in the global patent transactions market. He has a broad remit to identify new business opportunities and turbocharge existing ones, while ensuring that we extract the most from the knowledge and skills of our highly talented teams. 

On top of these, we have also recruited two names that will be very familiar to IAM readers: Joff Wild became our head of content and strategic communications in January and was joined a few months later by Jacob Schindler, who works with him and is based in our Hong Kong office. All of these appointments – and others we have made over the course of the last year – demonstrate not only our ambition but also our ability to attract individuals of the very highest calibre. And we haven’t stopped yet, so watch this space. 

What are the principles that guide Sisvel’s approach to business?

We have been around for more than 40 years and are a privately-owned business. There are no quarterly targets for us to hit or outside investors to keep happy, so we can take a long-term approach in our decision making where necessary. For example, before we start a new pool, we have many detailed conversations with all players in the sector we are looking at – potential licensees, licensors and third-party service providers. This can take months – perhaps even a year or two – but it allows us to launch knowing that we have covered all the bases in terms of the offer that we make. 

On the other hand, because the chain of command at Sisvel is relatively short, we can act very quickly should the need or opportunity arise. This freedom to operate gives us a level of flexibility that we believe is very important.

Whatever we do, we are absolutely committed to fairness, efficiency, transparency and the creation of level playing fields. We will never compromise on these principles.    

As patent pools expand into new verticals, what are the major forces in shaping successful pool operations?

Balance is vital. What a pool offers must appeal to both licensors and licensees. Set your royalty rate too high and licensees will not engage; set it too low and licensors are not going to be interested. Beyond that, any pool must also pass regulatory muster. 

How do you get to the point where all of these factors are in place? Patience and a lot of listening. First, you must have an in-depth understanding of the relevant technology and how it is applied in various industry verticals, then you must be clear about who the market participants are – both technology creators and implementers – so that you can speak to them in detail about what it is they want in terms of pricing, transparency, essentiality checks and so on. Crucially, these discussions must continue way beyond pool launch. Nothing should ever be set in stone. For example, in May, we revised some of the royalty rates in our Cellular IoT pool following market feedback. And, of course, everything must comply with antitrust laws and other regulations. There are no shortcuts in this business if you want to do things right.  

What are some of the biggest pressures on your clients right now, and what is Sisvel doing to help them overcome these?

Our clients are all of the people we work with as licensors and licensees in our pools, as well as on a bilateral basis. The pressures they face are many and will often be very different. To generalise, though, our clients are smart, innovative and focused on quality. They operate in complex markets to tight deadlines and are frequently working to financial targets. We help them to secure their objectives by having our own world-class engineering, strategic, dealmaking and legal personnel, who can provide expert assessments of technologies and the patents that underpin them, as well as creative solutions to challenging licensing problems.  

There are many regulatory issues facing SEP holders currently, not least the proposed EU SEP licensing regulation. What are your views on the developing policy landscape?  

We have few concerns for Sisvel as a business with regards to the way that policy is developing in Europe and elsewhere – we are a robust, flexible and entrepreneurial organisation that is already committed to best practices that we believe should become industry standard.  

That said, it is no secret that we opposed the proposed regulation before it was approved by the European Parliament, as we felt that it did not provide workable solutions to the problems that exist within the SEP licensing marketplace and that it would do more harm than good. In particular, we were very disappointed that the legislation failed to recognise the positive contribution that patent pools make in the licensing market and how they might be leveraged to make it more efficient. 

However, we must be realistic. It seems likely that the regulation will happen at some point. Therefore, we want to work with the European Commission, EU member states and other stakeholders to ensure that what emerges is as strong as possible. For example, if you really want to tackle market inefficiencies and lack of transparency, patent pools are an ideal way forward. This is something that the commission itself has recognised in the past. 

More generally, we are concerned that a toxic, frequently poorly informed and sometimes bad-faith discussion about SEPs is developing in Europe. It’s something that has characterised the debate around patents in the United States for several years in way that has done a great deal of harm. We should avoid this at all costs on this side of the Atlantic. 

Proponents of weaker patent rights in Europe are investing continuously in dubious, one-sided research, media articles and opinion pieces. We see this, for example, in the debate about supposed market inefficiencies. It is vital that those of us who believe that SEP licensing rewards innovators, encourages greater investments in R&D and spurs the development of technology markets are proactive. We cannot just react to those who wish to weaken licensors’ rights. We must get on the front foot.

What trends do you see emerging in FRAND licensing, and how can companies best prepare to take advantage of these? 

The clearest trend in FRAND licensing is that it is growing across a broad number of verticals and industry sectors – and that the scope is becoming a lot more global. At Sisvel, we now have programmes for pools covering mobile communications, the IoT, Wi-Fi, audio and video coding and decoding, and digital video and broadcasting. We are actively looking at other areas too. 

If you want to take advantage of the growing opportunities out there, the most important thing is to know they exist. That means looking closely at your portfolio and understanding what it may read onto. Once you have done that, you need to develop industry knowledge and contacts to put together a compelling offer. Sisvel has the knowledge and experience to do all of this in-house.  

Sisvel is a global organisation spanning three continents. Which jurisdictions do you see as playing increasingly important roles in the SEP/FRAND world, and why? 

Much of the technology underpinned by SEPs is now deployed worldwide. Just look at the use of smartphones across all continents, for example, or how the IoT is taking off globally. On top of that, the manufacture of products based on these technologies is often relatively straightforward. You could term this ‘technology commoditisation’. 

It’s hard to identify specific jurisdictions, but we have seen the rise of China over the last two decades and now India seems to be attracting a lot more attention. In Latin America, Brazil is also becoming a place to watch. What unites these countries is their large population sizes. So, I think this is something to keep an eye on and the data shows that a lot of SEP holders are doing exactly that. They are filing for patent protection in many more countries than they used to. 

However things develop, Sisvel will be there at the cutting edge, making sure that we are able to offer the best possible solutions to all of our clients.