European Commission Announces Intention To Withdraw The Proposed EU Regulation On SEPs

In an unexpected turn of events, the European Commission has announced their intention to withdraw the proposed EU regulation on Standard Essential Patents (SEPs). In this article, Greg Ward and Alex Roy explore what this announcement means.

Unexpectedly, the European Commission has announced their intention to withdraw the proposed EU regulation on Standard Essential Patents (SEPs).

If approved by EU member states, the proposed regulation would have resulted in the introduction of an SEP register at the EUIPO. Registered SEPs would have undergone essentiality checks and the use of non-registered SEPs for making a claim for infringement would be limited. The regulation also set out provisions for an out-of-court, non-binding FRAND determination procedure, which would have been mandatory if requested by either the licensee or licensor.

The announcement of the European Commission's intention to withdraw the proposed regulation can be found here, in the Commission Work Programme for 2025. The only reasoning provided for the withdrawal is that there has been "No foreseeable agreement" on the matter. It is not entirely surprising that no agreement was foreseen, given the unanswered questions surrounding the proposals (e.g., the EUIPOs competency for performing essentiality checks on SEPs), and significant pushback from various sources against the proposals.

The work programme does state that "the Commission will assess whether another proposal should be tabled or another type of approach should be chosen". The work programme therefore suggests that, although the EU's proposed regulation in its current form is unlikely to ever come into force, some other form of SEP regulation may still be on the horizon.

The work programme provides no further details regarding the withdrawal, and as of yet there has been no official statement from the European Commission beyond the posting of the work programmme.