We analyse the basic economic issues relating to third-party intellectual property clearinghouses that act as licensing intermediaries. We identify economic functions of clearinghouses and discuss ways that they can improve efficiency in licensing through centralisation and independence. We then...

We focus on downstream uses that combine multiple intellectual property rights and examine the effects of introducing an intellectual property clearinghouse that reduces transaction costs associated with licensing. We show that this causes equilibrium royalties to rise in some cases and may harm...