PATENT HOLDUP AND OLIGOPSONISTIC COLLUSION IN STANDARD-SETTING ORGANIZATIONS

Patent Holdup and Royalty Stacking

We study several interconnected problems that arise under the current U.S. patent system when a patent covers one component or feature of a complex product. This situation is common in the information technology sector of the economy. Our analysis applies to cases involving reasonable royalties but not lost profits. First, we show using bargaining theory that the threat to obtain a permanent in...

Antitrust, Intellectual Property, and Standard Setting Organizations

The role of institutions in mediating the use of intellectual property rights has long been neglected in debates over the economics of intellectual property. In a path-breaking work, Rob Merges studied what he calls "collective rights organizations," industry groups that collect intellectual property rights from owners and license them as a package. Merges finds that these organizations ease so...

Standard Setting Organizations and Standard Essential Patents: Voting and Markets

The key finding is that Standard Setting Organizations (SSOs) choose effi cient technology standards because voting power and market power have counterbalancing effects. Agents on the long side of the market have less added value in the marketplace but more voting power in cooperative organizations and conversely for the short side of the market. In a two-stage model, industry members choose te...

The Performance of Standard Setting Organizations: Using Patent Data for Evaluation

This article uses citations to patents disclosed in the standard setting process to measure the technological significance of voluntary standard setting organizations (SSOs). We find that SSO patents are outliers in several dimensions and importantly, are cited far more frequently than a set of control patents. More surprisingly, we find that SSO patents receive citations for a much longer peri...

The Performance of Standard Setting Organizations: Using Patent Data for Evaluation