Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) – licensing and litigation

Kevin Scott, Philips Intellectual Property & Standards

Dr Kevin Scott works for Philips Intellectual Property & Standards, where he leads a global team of licensing professionals in licensing Philips patents to third parties in technical areas including telecommunications (UMTS/LTE/5G) and television. Dr Scott has over 20 years’ experience in licensing standard essential patents (SEPs) to companies large and small and has extensive experience in multinational litigation of SEPs. Before joining the IP profession in 1997, Dr Scott worked at Philips research laboratories in the creation of computer simulation programs.

Dr Scott’s technical background is in electrical engineering (with a PhD from University College London) and physics (with a degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University). He is a UK Chartered Patent Attorney and a European Patent Attorney, a Council member of the UK’s IP Federation, and is included as a top practitioner in IAM’s Strategy 300, 2024.

Richard Vary, Bird & Bird

Richard is a partner in Bird & Bird’s Intellectual Property Practice.   At Bird & Bird, Richard has been involved in SEP disputes between Nokia and Apple, between Qualcomm and Apple, between Nokia, Daimler and Continental, and Mitsubishi and Sisvel against Oppo, OnePlus and Xiaomi. Before joining Bird & Bird in 2016, Richard was the Vice President and Head of Litigation at Nokia.  During his time at Nokia he managed international patent litigations and arbitrations between Nokia and Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm, LGE, Blackberry, IPCom, HTC, and Viewsonic. Richard has been named twice in Managing IP’s annual list of the 50 most influential people in intellectual property and is regularly viewed as a corporate IP star by MIP.  At Nokia, he was awarded ‘In-House Counsel of the Year’ by the Lawyer. Richard sits part time as a District Judge in London and the South East, and in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court. He has a degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University.