Geneva, Switzerland, 17 March 2014

Opening Address

​Ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome to the second  meeting of the IPR AHG this year.

Thanks to the very generous gesture for Qualcomm and Broadcom to host the last event in the beautiful Orange County, and the bright Californian sunshine, and I think the spirit of the meeting was very positive and it enabled some really solid progress.

It is not often that someone breaks into song in a standards meeting!I

Icertainly emerged from that meeting with my sense of optimism enhanced.

There was good progress in the discussion on reasonable and the issue of non-discrimination was addressed for the first time.

These achievements should set us in good stead for this meeting where in addition we will return again to the issue of injunctive relief.

I hope that we can continue today with the same energy as we found in January.

In order to achieve consensus it is clear that both sides will need to compromise.

I cannot emphasise this enough… we need to find middle-ground, a balance between the interests of the innovator and the implementer, and I urge you to progress with this in mind.

My aim is still to present some recommendations to TSAG in June for improvements in either the Policy and/or the Guidelines, and the forms, on these issues.

I wish you a very productive meeting and as always I am available for any side discussions anyone would wish to have with me.