Representative Clients
Cyber Security Industry Alliance
The Linux Foundation
IMS Global Learning Consortium
Mobile Imaging and Printing Consortium
Near Field Communication Forum
Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium
OASIS
Open Geospatial Consortium
PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group
SDR Forum
Semiconductor Test Consortium

Gesmer Updegrove LLP has represented more than 70 standard-setting, advocacy and promotional consortia, including many of the largest high technology consortia in the world. We are skilled in areas essential to these organizations, such as non-profit representation, intellectual property ownership and transfer, patent and trademark law, domestic and international antitrust, formation and governance, and trademark law. Our attorneys also bring a wide knowledge of practical, business, and industry realities to our representation of consortium clients, providing business consulting as well as legal services to help create and operate successful consortia.

Formation, Structure, and Management

We are experienced in effectively structuring, operating, evolving, and dissolving successful consortia, and at any time are advising several groups of founding companies in forming new global organizations. We also convert non-incorporated consortia into corporate forms. In structuring consortia, we assist the founders in creating membership classes, fees structures and launch strategies, and assist management in designing budgets and staffing plans among contributed, hired, and outsourced alternatives. We also structure employment, compensation, and benefit programs and advise on the implementation of suitable antitrust policies. Once formed, we work with technology and standard-setting organizations to develop and implement certification standards adoption processes and testing and accreditation programs. Our expertise extends to forming umbrella organizations, structuring for-profit subsidiaries, and facilitating partnerships, combinations, and mergers.

Technology and Intellectual Property

Among the most vital features of any standard-setting organization are its intellectual property rights ("IPR") program and its approach to protecting and disseminating technology standards. Our attorneys are leaders in the design of such programs, and regularly guide our clients through the process of achieving consensus on difficult IPR issues. The IPR policies we design foster implementation of specifications, while minimizing patent infringement risks and avoiding unnecessary disclosure burdens on consortium members. We also design technical committee policies and procedures to facilitate the operation of our consortium clients.

Antitrust and Regulatory Issues

We provide careful analysis, counseling, and documentation for our consortium clients to ensure that their activities comply with antitrust regulations. We review and help implement proper features of membership criteria and restrictions; ethics codes; standards setting procedures, certification programs, and accreditation activities; promotional programs; purchasing programs; export activities; joint R&D activities; and joint intellectual property programs. We are well informed of new and proposed regulatory issues and our attorneys are widely recognized for their expertise, having been invited to give testimony before the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission on standards adoption issues.

Business Consulting

In addition to the full range of legal services in forming, counseling, and representing consortia, our attorneys also provide extensive consulting services to both our consortium clients and their members. We also act as standards strategy advisor to major corporations, and our attorneys have written, spoken, and testified on a variety of consortium and standards-related topics.

Thought Leaders

Gesmer Updegrove LLP sponsors www.ConsortiumInfo.org, the most complete and comprehensive site on standard setting and consortia on the Internet. We also distribute, free of charge, the Consortium Standards Bulletin, a monthly eJournal of news and analysis on the same topics.

Andrew Updegrove ( profile, email), who leads the Consortium and Standard Setting Practice, is nationally recognized for his leadership in the development of consortium structures, best practices, and intellectual property rights policies. He is also the creator and Editor of ConsortiumInfo.org and the Consortium Standards Bulletin.