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Private Agreements for Coordinating Patent Rights: The Case of Patent Pools

Author

Listed:
  • Gallini, Nancy
Abstract
Inventors and users of technology often enter into cooperative agreements for sharing their intellectual property in order to implement a standard or to avoid costly litigation. Over the past two decades, U.S. antitrust authorities have viewed pooling arrangements that integrate complementary, valid and essential patents as having procompetitive benefits in reducing prices, transactions costs, and the incidence of legal suits. Since patent pools are cooperative agreements, they also have the potential of suppressing competition if, for example, they harbor weak or invalid patents, dampen incentives to conduct research on innovations that compete with the pooled patents, foreclose competition from downstream product or upstream input markets, or raise prices on goods that compete with the pooled patents. In synthesizing the ideas advanced in the economic literature, this paper explores whether these antitrust concerns apply to pools with complementary patents and, if they do, the implications for competition policy to constrain them. Special attention is given to the application of the U.S. Department of Justice - Federal Trade Commission Guidelines for the Licensing of Intellectual Property (1995) and its companion Antitrust Enforcement and Intellectual Property Rights: Promoting Innovation and Competition (2007) to recent patent pool cases.

Suggested Citation

  • Gallini, Nancy, 2011. "Private Agreements for Coordinating Patent Rights: The Case of Patent Pools," IEL Working Papers 5, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.
    • Handle: RePEc:uca:ucaiel:5
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Josh Lerner & Jean Tirole, 2015. "Standard-Essential Patents," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(3), pages 547-586.
    2. Jeitschko Thomas D. & Zhang Nanyun, 2014. "Adverse Effects of Patent Pooling on Product Development and Commercialization," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 27-57, January.
    3. Paul H. Jensen & Alfons Palangkaraya & Elizabeth Webster, 2013. "Trust, Incomplete Contracts and the Market for Technology," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2013n03, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    4. Dequiedt, Vianney & Versaevel, Bruno, 2013. "Patent pools and dynamic R&D incentives," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 59-69.
    5. Jay Pil Choi & Heiko Gerlach, 2015. "Patent pools, litigation, and innovation," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(3), pages 499-523, September.
    6. Gallini, Nancy, 2014. "Cooperating with competitors: Patent pooling and choice of a new standard," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 4-21.
    7. Alberto Cassone & Giovanni Ramello, 2011. "The simple economics of class action: private provision of club and public goods," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 205-224, October.
    8. Ryan L. Lampe & Petra Moser, 2012. "Do Patent Pools Encourage Innovation? Evidence from 20 U.S. Industries under the New Deal," NBER Working Papers 18316, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Jensen, Paul H. & Palangkaraya, Alfons & Webster, Elizabeth, 2015. "Trust and the market for technology," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 340-356.
    10. Ralph Siebert, 2013. "Are Ex Ante and Ex Post Licensing Agreements Useful Instruments to Lessen Uncertainty in R&D?," CESifo Working Paper Series 4535, CESifo.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    patents; patent pools; intellectual property;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

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