Technological standards give rise to a complements problem that affects pricing and innovation incentives of technology producers. In this paper I discuss how patent pools can be used to solve these problems and what incentives patent holders have to form a patent pool. I offer some suggestions...

Technological standards give rise to a complements problem that affects pricing and innovation incentives of technology producers. In this paper I discuss how patent pools can be used to solve these problems and what incentives patent holders have to form a patent pool. I offer some suggestions...

Many observers have voiced concerns that standards create essentiality and thus monopoly power for the holders of standard essential patents (SEPs). To address these concerns, Lerner and Tirole (2015) advocate structured price commitments, whereby SEP holders commit to the maximum royalty they...

Standardization may allow the owners of standard-essential patents to charge royalty rates exceeding those that would have been negotiated ex ante. In practice, however, standard-setting efforts are often characterized by repeated interaction and complementarities among technologies. These...

We analyze the sustainability of a conversation when one agent might be endowed with a piece of private information that affects the payoff distribution to its benefit. Such a secret can compromise the sustainability of conversation. Even without an obligation, the secret holder will disclose...

Standard essential patents have emerged as a major focus in both the public policy and academic arenas. The primary concern is that once a patented technology has been incorporated into a standard, the standard can effectively insulate it from competition from substitute technologies. To guard...

This paper argues that the value of standard essential patents (SEPs) should be independent of the level of licensing in the value chain. We further argue the value of enabling technologies, such as SEPs, is best determined in relation to the value it produces to the consumer or end-user,...

At which stage in the production chain should patent licensing takes place? In this paper we show that under realistic circumstances a patent holder would be better off by licensing downstream. This occurs when the licensing revenue can depend on the downstream value of the product either...

Standard-setting organizations (SSOs) typically require their members to declare whether they hold standard-essential patents (SEPs) or disclose which SEPs they own, and to commit to licensing SEPs on “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory” (FRAND) terms. The apparent vagueness of FRAND...

I analyze standard setting organizations' decisions on licensing policy and standard's technological specification, and the ensuing implications for social welfare. I find the conditions under which a licensing rule that grants monopoly power to the licensors whose technology is adopted in the...