Founding RFID Consortium LLC members 3M, ThingMagic, and Zebra Technologies, along with newcomers Hewlett-Packard, France Telecom, LG Electronics, and Motorola have submitted a business plan to the U.S. Department of Justices (DoJ) focused on antitrust laws.
RFID Consortium, formed in 2005, addresses the intellectual property (IP) licensing for RFID technology. Each company participating today holds ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID patents. All have submitted at least one to the pool.
The DoJ has agreed to review legal and licensing issues related to the RFID Consortium LLC's business plan. On completion of the review, the group expects to begin offering licenses to firms interested in manufacturing, using or selling UHF RFID readers, labels or chips embedded in labels.
Among the documents the DoJ must review, the list of "essential" patents that will become part of the initial portfolio. The essential patents are related to standards EPCglobal Gen 2 or International Standards Organization (ISO) 18006c. Proskauer Rose, the law firm representing the RFID Council LLC, will evaluate the patents and provide feedback as to whether the patents are required to build an RFID application.
The pool is not open to all. For example, Eastman-Kodak cannot submit its RFID patent for digestible chips that monitor bodily events. The chip, once digested, would monitor how a person's digestive track absorbs medicine, or verifies how a specific medicine interacts with other drugs in someone's body. The RFID tag would disintegrate eventually.
Nor would the RFID Consortium pool include Philips Electronics' patent application for an electronic drug delivery capsule with remote control medication release that relies on RFID technology to authenticate and identify the drug.
Meanwhile, a favorable review of the documents from the DoJ could take years, but Dave Poole, a representative for the RFID Consortium, expects the group to hear back in less than 12 months. "The consortium council told us up front this would be a long haul," he says. "The process takes time because participating companies collaborating to form this pool have different interests and agendas."
While some are semiconductor vendors, and others systems vendors, all must agree on the business processes. Representatives from each company must have a chance to state their diverse points of view. Companies will continually have opportunities to contribute patents.
"It's a little like herding cats," Poole says. "It takes companies and attorneys time and effort to make sure there aren't any antitrust violations. Remember, you have competitors sitting in these rooms to ensure anticompetitive activity doesn't exist."
