RAND commitments—i.e., promises to license on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms— play a key role in standard setting processes. However, the usefulness of those commitments has recently been questioned. The problem allegedly lies in the absence of a generally agreed test to determine...

A few recent contributions to the literature have claimed that in high-tech industries -- where innovation is often cumulative and products include many components protected by patents held by many different patent holders – the cost of obtaining all necessary licenses is too high. Some have...

Firm structure and the degree of vertical integration lie at the core of a key intellectual property concern currently under debate: "patent trolls." While court opinions and competition agency decisions have focused on "non-practicing" patent holders as synonymous with trolls and hold up...