On Friday 25 November, the European Commission launched a Call for Evidence to provide feedback on the scope and content of its evaluation of the Technology Transfer Block Exemption Regulation and its related guidelines.
The Block Exemption Regulation exempts certain categories of technology transfer agreements from the prohibition of anticompetitive agreements laid down in Article 101(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU.
The Block Exemption Regulation on technology transfer agreements, which exempts certain agreements and practices from the general EU competition rules, will expire on 30 April 2026.
The objective of this initiative is to assess how the Regulation and related guidelines work in practice in order to determine whether the Commission should: - allow the regulation to expire; - extend the validity period of the regulation; - develop a revised version of the regulation and related guidelines.
All interested parties can submit their views until 23 December 2022. A public consultation will be launched by the European Commission in the second quarter of 2023.
Technology transfer agreements are agreements by which one party authorises another to use certain industrial property rights (such as patents, design rights, software copyright) for the production of goods or services.
More info: https://aeur.eu/f/4b0 (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)