ABSTRACT
The notion of essential facilities as a theory has different approaches and interpretations, although concept-wise one may state it is easy to follow, as it simply means what it says: essential facility. The theme of essential facilities was claimed in the European Union (EU) in Commercial Solvents. The absence of past arrangements whereby the current competitors shared facility was a major deciding factor as well. Open source as a structure has been a rather popular arrangement in the software business. In the world of patents, assessment of open source is equated with a loss of control or of the inventor's authority over the inventor's own piece of property. If the area protected by patents is of substantial commercial interest, then one sees two kinds of activity. One is where interested concerns pay the right of access fees (i.e. license fees) and start utilizing the patents. The other activity attempts to go around the patent and avoid paying license fees.
