Working Paper: NBER ID: w9680
Authors: Josh Lerner; Jean Tirole; Marcin Strojwas
Abstract: On numerous occasions, rival firms seek to market goods together, particularly in high-technology industries. This paper empirically examines one such institution: the patent pool. The analysis highlights five findings consistent with the theoretical predictions: (a) pools involving substitute patents are unlikely to allow pool members to license patents independently, consistent with our earlier theoretical work; (b) independent licensing is more frequently allowed when the number of members in the pool grows, which may reflect the increasing challenges that reconciling users? differing technological agendas pose in large pools; (c) larger pools are more likely to have centralized control of litigation, which may reflect either the fact that the incentives for individual enforcement in large pools are smaller or that large pools are more likely to include small players with limited enforcement capabilities; (d) third party licensing is more common in larger pools, consistent with suggestions that such pools were established primarily to resolve the bargaining difficulties posed by overlapping patent holdings; and (e) during the most recent era, when an intense awareness of antitrust concerns precluded many competition-harming patent pools, more important patents were selected for pools and patents selected for pools were subsequently more intensively referenced by others.
Keywords: patent pools; cooperative marketing; intellectual property; antitrust; high-technology industries
JEL Codes: L2; L4; O4
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| type of patents (O34) | independent licensing (L24) |
| pool size (L25) | licensing flexibility (D45) |
| pool size (L25) | centralization of litigation control (K41) |
| pool size (L25) | third-party licensing (L24) |
| regulatory conditions (L51) | patent selection (O38) |