Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-11-25-Speech-4-059"
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"en.20101125.5.4-059"2
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"Madam President, I wish to thank the honourable Member very much for the question, as this is indeed a very important area of responsibility for the European Union.
Turning to information exchange, this can be pro-competitive when it enables companies to gather general market data that allow them to serve customers better. However, there are also situations where the exchange of market information can be misused, for instance, when companies use sensitive information to coordinate behaviour. In response to strong stakeholder demand, the guidelines contain a new chapter setting out general principles for competition assessment of information exchange.
The last question that was raised by Parliament related to the question of purchasing cooperatives. The Commission has consistently believed that joint purchasing groups amongst small retailers can be beneficial for competition, especially vis-à-vis large suppliers. The horizontal guidelines have, since 2000, provided for a positive assessment for this type of cooperation up to certain limits of market share. Following its review process, the Commission is proposing that for purchasing agreements, as long as the market share of participants is 20% or less, it will be presumed to be in line with the competition rules. But the Commission is also aware that international buying alliances among large retailers may have a negative impact on competition, with issues being examined in the context of the Commission’s work on a better functioning food supply.
Competing companies often work together, for instance, in research and development, production, purchasing, product standardisation and information exchange. As you know, this can be beneficial to consumers and lead to lower prices, more choice and better products. These horizontal agreements – we call them horizontal because the cooperating companies are active at the same level in the supply chain – can allow companies to respond to increasing competitive pressures and a changing market place driven by globalisation.
But there is also a risk that this kind of agreement can lead to serious competition problems, for example, where the parties agree to fix prices, share markets or limit output. The Commission has spent the past two years reviewing the competition guidelines for horizontal agreements, with in-depth assessment and wide consultation. The new rules, which should be adopted by the end of this year, will be much more detailed, user-friendly and clear, providing better guidance on what kinds of cooperation are allowed.
As always, the Commission has had to strike a careful balance between the needs of different stakeholders. The two main elements of the new competition rules are on standard-setting and information exchange. In the responses to the public consultation, around two-thirds of stakeholders commented on standardisation.
A well-functioning system for standard-setting is vital for the European economy as a whole and, in particular, for the information and communication technology sector. The horizontal guidelines promote a standard-setting system that is transparent and that leads to predictable costs when licensing intellectual property rights. This requires attempting to find a balance between the sometimes contradictory interests of companies with different business models involved in the standard-setting process. At one end of the spectrum, you have the pure innovator and, at the other, the pure manufacturer, each with different priorities and needs.
The new rules will make sure both that there are sufficient incentives for further innovation and that the traditional benefits from standardisations are passed on to consumers. In order for standard-setting agreements to avoid having to be assessed under the competition rules and to fall within the so-called safe harbour – meaning where they are presumed to be in line with the competition rules – there are three general conditions that need to be met.
The first is that a standard-setting organisation needs to have a balanced IPR policy, requiring good-faith disclosure of the relevant IPRs, and a commitment to licensing these on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. The second is that the process of standard-setting must be open and transparent so that participation is open to all relevant actors. The third is that the standard-setting process must also be transparent in a way that ensures that stakeholders are able to inform themselves of upcoming, ongoing and finalised work.
You also mentioned patent ambushes. Case experience, both in the EU and in the US, shows that patent ambush can be a real problem by preventing industry from making an informed choice on the potential costs of the technologies chosen in the standard. The Commission approach is to give standard-setting organisations incentives to have clear rules on disclosure of patents. Although this does not completely remove the risk, it does reduce it.
By contrast, for R&D agreements where there are a limited number of parties – often only two – the public consultation showed that stakeholders considered that there is, in practice, no real problem of patent ambush as the parties have an incentive to bring innovations to market and any potential problems can be solved upfront by contractual means between parties."@en1
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