Role at BRELA
Justus Baron is the director and founder of BRELA, and the lead researcher for BRELA’s research publications and reports. He oversees the firm’s empirical research agenda and ensures the methodological rigor, independence, and policy relevance of BRELA’s work.

Academic & Research Background
Justus is an academic researcher with over 15 years of experience in empirical research on technology standards and patents. He is research director at the Center on Law, Business, and Economics at Northwestern University in Chicago, where he conducts and supervises advanced empirical research at the intersection of economics, law, and technology.

Expertise in SEP & FRAND
Justus is a widely recognized expert on standard-essential patents (SEPs) and SEP licensing. One core area of his expertise is the determination of fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing terms for SEPs. He regularly conducts expert testimony work on SEP-related issues. Justus was a member of the European Commission Expert Group on SEPs and served as lead researcher of a consortium assisting the European Commission with an Impact Assessment Study on SEPs (see Publication 1 & Publication 2 for the respective studies). He regularly publishes and speaks at international conferences on SEP policy, valuation, and licensing.

More recently, Justus also founded FRANDLY, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company. FRANDLY is a licensing intelligence tool that provides FRAND royalty price estimates and benchmarks.

Standardization Policy & Governance
Another core area of Justus’s expertise is standardization policy, including the rules and governance of standards organizations, the use of technology standards in regulation, and the geopolitics of standardization. His work includes in-depth analysis of standards development processes at individual standards development organizations, most notably the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). He has published comprehensive empirical studies on these topics and has presented his research directly to policymakers and other decision makers.

Data & Research Infrastructure
Justus created the Searle Center Database, a comprehensive data resource for academic researchers containing detailed information on technology standards, standards organizations, declared SEPs, and standardization processes at 3GPP.

Conferences & Research Leadership
Justus has organized numerous conferences, workshops, and seminars at Northwestern University and internationally, such as, more recently, the Fifth Annual Empirical Research Conference on Standardization and the Global Standards Leadership Conference 2025. These events bring together academics, policymakers, and industry leaders to advance evidence-based discussions on standards and innovation.

Languages

English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

Beyond Research
When he is not working with patents and standards databases, Justus enjoys spending time with his wife and two daughters, dancing tango, and playing soccer.