Intellectual Property Rights and Standard Setting in Financial Services: The Case of the Single European Payments Area

43 Pages Posted: 3 Oct 2007

See all articles by Robert M. Hunt

Robert M. Hunt

Consumer Finance Institute, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Samuli Simojoki

Attorneys at Law Borenius & Kemppinen Ltd

Tuomas Takalo

Bank of Finland

Date Written: August 2007

Abstract

For many reasons, payment systems are subject to strong network effects; one of those is the necessity of interoperability among participants. This is often accomplished via standard-setting organizations. The goal of the Single European Payments Area (SEPA) is to establish modern cross-boarder consumer payment systems for Europe. This too will require a standard-setting arrangement. But patents are also becoming an important feature of electronic payment systems and thus standard setting under SEPA should incorporate a policy to address the ownership and licensing of essential intellectual property. Using examples from the experience of European mobile telephony and financial patenting in the United States, the authors argue that the lack of a well-developed IP policy creates significant risks for participants in the new SEPA payment systems.

Keywords: SEPA, business method patents, electronic payments, standard setting, licensing

JEL Classification: O31, O34, G20

Suggested Citation

Hunt, Robert M. and Simojoki, Samuli and Takalo, Tuomas, Intellectual Property Rights and Standard Setting in Financial Services: The Case of the Single European Payments Area (August 2007). FRB of Philadelphia Working Paper No. 07-20, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1018483 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1018483

Robert M. Hunt (Contact Author)

Consumer Finance Institute, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia ( email )

Ten Independence Mall
Philadelphia, PA 19106-1574
United States
215-574-3806 (Phone)
215-574-7101 (Fax)

Samuli Simojoki

Attorneys at Law Borenius & Kemppinen Ltd

Yrjönkatu 13 A
FI-00120 Helsinki
Finland

Tuomas Takalo

Bank of Finland ( email )

P.O. Box 160
Helsinki 00101
Finland

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
250
Abstract Views
1,637
Rank
236,251
PlumX Metrics