R&D coordination in standard setting organizations: The role of consortia

We analyze R&D competition and cooperation between …rms involved in the development of a technology standard. Our model captures the two counterweighting types of incentives these …rms are subject to: free-riding due to the public good nature of the standard, and patent races in order to derive royalties from essential patents. As a consequence, R&D may be excessive or insu¢ cient as compared to the collective optimum. Our purpose is to test empirically whether consortia can address any type of ine¢ ciency, by either reducing or increasing collective R&D investment. We address this question empirically on a large dataset of ICT standards, by assessing the e¤ect of consortia on the number of standard-related patents …led by companies. After sorting standards entailing over or underinvestment, our results con…rm that in the …rst case consortia have a chilling e¤ect on patent …lings, while it has an in‡ating e¤ect in the second case. WORK IN PROGRESS, PRELIMINARY AND INCOMPLETE Authors’a¢ liations and email contacts: Justus Baron: Cerna, MINES ParisTech, [email protected] Yann Ménière: Cerna, MINES ParisTech, [email protected] Tim Pohlmann: Technische Universität Berlin, [email protected]