Authors
François Lévêque, Yann Ménière
Publication date
2011/12/1
Journal
Information Economics and Policy
Volume
23
Issue
3-4
Pages
243-251
Publisher
North-Holland
Description
This paper addresses the problem of non-cooperative patent pool formation by owners of patents related to a standard. We develop a model in which competing manufacturers must license several patents to produce standard-compliant goods. Separate licensing creates a double-marginalization problem. Moreover manufacturers must sink a fixed cost to enter the product market, and thus face a hold-up problem if licensing takes place after their entry. In this setting, the formation of a pool fails when it takes place after entry. Instead, we show that allowing patent owners to commit ex ante on joining a pool is an effective way to trigger the emergence of a stable pool solving both the double-marginalization and hold-up problems. Therefore, patent owners should be encouraged to coordinate their licensing policies on a voluntary basis at early stages in the standard-setting process.
Total citations
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Scholar articles
F Lévêque, Y Ménière - Information Economics and Policy, 2011
F Lévêque, Y Ménière - Available at SSRN 1121256, 2008