In 2015, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Standardization Association made some controversial changes to its patent policy. The changes include a recommended method of calculation of FRAND royalty rates, and a request to members holding a standard essential patent...

It has been commonly argued that the decision of a large number of inventors to license complementary patents necessary for the development of a product leads to excessively large royalties. This well-known Cournot-complements or royalty-stacking effect would hurt efficiency and downstream...

Licensing platforms are a clear example of a collective action problem, where groups have aligned long-term interests but misaligned short-term goals. Customised incentives can be a key way to facilitate socially desirable collective action, especially where a market or platform includes a range...

The current approach to licensing in many cases increases costs and inefficiencies for patent owners and implementers alike. As such, a new approach – licensing 2.0 – is called for. The first principle of this new approach is to have an ecosystem in place that incentivises further innovation...

A review of the existing evidence on the degree of internationalization of the innovative activities of MNEs reveals three main trends. These are the continuing reliance of firms on the home country as a base for innovation, structural changes in MNEs towards more affiliate autonomy, and a small...

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,...

Alliances between competitors where an established firm provides access to its marketing and distribution channels are an important real-world phenomenon. We analyze a market where an established firm, firm A, produces a product of well-known quality, and a firm with an unknown brand, firm B,...

In response to concerns that inefficiencies in SEP licensing may have a negative systemic impact on the development of emerging 5G and IoT Markets, the European Commission (EC) convened an Expert Group on Licensing and Valuation of Standards Essential Patents (SEP Expert Group), resulting in a...

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...