Innovation
How Patent Licensing Advances Innovation
Key Points
- Licensing agreements help incentivize innovation in the broadband industry by enabling collaboration and technology transfer.
- CableLabs’ patented technologies are available for our member operators to use at any time.
- Licensing reduces the litigation risk for manufacturers and other vendors who contribute to CableLabs’ work.
At CableLabs, we talk a lot about the importance of innovation and collaboration. These are the connecting themes in our Technology Vision for the broadband industry to drive competitiveness, scale and alignment while also cultivating technologies for the future.
But there’s another critical piece of the puzzle that comes into play when we talk about the industry’s collective advancements: intellectual property. Specifically, the licensing of patents and software — and how these creative safeguards move broadband technology forward by incentivizing innovation.
Why Are Patents Important?
Patents are a pillar of innovation in tech. They give inventors rights to their creations, allowing them to protect their hard-earned ideas in exchange for sharing the details of their invention with the world and pushing the boundaries of public knowledge. And during the patent protection period, a patent license allows other innovators to create and even build on the original invention. This allows technology to evolve and spark new ideas, even before the patent period ends.
Once the patent's protection runs out, the invention becomes public domain, meaning anyone can use or improve on it freely, fueling further progress. It's a win-win, keeping innovation moving forward!
It’s no surprise that the broadband industry is rife with patents. In fact, as of today, the CableLabs patent portfolio includes more than 850 issued and allowed U.S. patents and 97 foreign-issued patents.
Why Is Licensing Important?
Most standards and specifications carry an associated patent licensing requirement. This means that if you agree to work on and contribute to a specification, you also agree to license your patents that are essential for the specification’s implementation.
Licensing agreements prevent parties from incorporating their patented technology into a specification and later withholding or over-leveraging patent rights against a manufacturer that wants to build products that implement the specification. This is sometimes called patent hold-up, or a patent hold-out.
Adhering to a patent licensing policy establishes a nurturing environment that fosters collaboration, advances development and unifies goals in the industry to ensure the cooperation and interoperability that are critical to innovation advancements. It’s one of the reasons DOCSIS®️ technology was such a success and rapidly adopted, and why it continues to benefit the industry.
Further, in addition to licensing regimes created for specification development, patents and licensing play a pivotal role in broadband technology development more generally, helping industry players navigate a complex legal landscape while contributing to a stronger, healthier ecosystem and ensuring vendor neutrality.
Focusing on the future, CableLabs develops technologies and demonstrates proof-of-concept for innovations that will provide value to our members through an innovation lens that usually targets an impact eight to 10 years out. Developed to benefit the industry as a whole, CableLabs’ patented technologies are available for our member operators to leverage at any time.
Since our first intellectual property license in 1998, CableLabs has made it a tenet of our mission to enable the vendor ecosystem to deliver interoperable, competitive solutions. Licensing also reduces the litigation risk for vendors who contribute to the work we do.
Gridmetrics Available for Licensing
Gridmetrics, which evolved from a project incubated at CableLabs, uses existing broadband infrastructure to deliver actionable insights about the state of power in the last mile of the distribution grid. By providing an out-of-band measurement of the quality and consistency of the power grid, Gridmetrics data can be leveraged for outage detection, power restoration, grid safety and voltage variability.
Gridmetrics is now on a path to expanding its market reach. CableLabs’ research is complete, and licensing of the technology’s intellectual property is available.
Contact us using the button below to discuss licensing opportunities and learn how to join us in our work to achieve this vision for the industry. We’re excited to help put CableLabs’ technologies to work for you!