Promoting Access to Intellectual Property : Patent Pools, Copyright Collectives and Clearinghouses

This paper reviews and compares patent pools, intellectual property clearinghouses and copyright collectives as alternative systems for promoting efficient access to licensable intellectual property in a 'market for technology' (Arora et al 2001). These systems aid downstream use of innovations by economizing on search and transaction costs faced by licensees, as well as potentially mitigating the conditions that lead to the 'tragedy of the anti-commons' (excessively high license fees and under-use of innovations). We compare and classify different systems in terms of their features, review some existing systems, and discuss their economic characteristics