There is, of course, more than one block exemption, though in the motor industry it is possible to lose sight of all but one of them. To many people, strange as it may seem, the most important one is on technology transfer agreements - the regulation which started off, many years ago, as the patent licensing block exemption and the related (but later) know-how licensing one, which were later merged.
Now the Commission is preparing a new TT block exemption, and guidelines. It won't be very different from the old one, which expires on 30 April, but there will be a change to the key definition which sets the regulation's scope, to include agreements that containg provisions relating to the purchase of products or the assignment of other intellectual property rights, provided that these are "directly and exclusively" related to the production of the contract products.
Also, the 20 per cent market share threshold will apply to agreements between non-competitors where the licensee owns technology which it only uses for inhouse production and which is substitutable for the licensed technology.
The Commission also proposes to revise the current excluded restrictions, to catch all exclusive grant-backs.
There is much more that could be said about this - but I'm working on the assumption that readers will either not be interested enough to read more, or will have found what they need elsewhere. A topic, I think, for my IP blog instead.
Now the Commission is preparing a new TT block exemption, and guidelines. It won't be very different from the old one, which expires on 30 April, but there will be a change to the key definition which sets the regulation's scope, to include agreements that containg provisions relating to the purchase of products or the assignment of other intellectual property rights, provided that these are "directly and exclusively" related to the production of the contract products.
Also, the 20 per cent market share threshold will apply to agreements between non-competitors where the licensee owns technology which it only uses for inhouse production and which is substitutable for the licensed technology.
The Commission also proposes to revise the current excluded restrictions, to catch all exclusive grant-backs.
There is much more that could be said about this - but I'm working on the assumption that readers will either not be interested enough to read more, or will have found what they need elsewhere. A topic, I think, for my IP blog instead.
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