On Friday 22 November, the European Commission launched a review of the block exemption regulation on technology transfer agreements and the accompanying guidelines on the application of Article 101 of the Treaty to categories of technology transfer agreements.
The Commission has published a Staff Working Document summarising the findings of its evaluation. In November 2022, it launched a review of the Technology Transfer Block Exemption Regulation (TTBER), which will expire on 30 April 2026, and the accompanying guidelines (see EUROPE 13163/23).
The evaluation showed that the TTBER and the Guidelines have been largely successful in ensuring the effective and uniform application of EU competition rules to technology transfer agreements.
However, these texts could be improved in certain areas to increase legal certainty and reflect recent market developments:
- certain stakeholders have identified practical difficulties in applying one of the two market share thresholds contained in the TTBER, namely the threshold for technology markets;
- stakeholders also suggested broadening the scope of the TTBER to cover the licensing of data or data rights, which have a growing importance in the digital economy, and/or providing guidance on this issue in the Guidelines;
- the safe harbour provided in the guidelines for technology pools has generally worked well, but some stakeholders consider that these conditions do not always guarantee that only compliant pools benefit from the safe harbour;
- some stakeholders consider that the Commission should provide guidance on the competition law assessment of licensing negotiation groups, namely groups of technology implementers who negotiate technology licences together.
The Commission will now launch the impact assessment phase of the review to look into the issues identified during the evaluation with a view to having revised rules in place by the date when the current rules will expire. Stakeholders will have the opportunity to comment on the call for evidence and to provide their views in the context of a public consultation, currently planned for December 2024.
To see the Staff Working Document: https://aeur.eu/f/eg5 (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)