The Formation Mechanism Of Patent Pools Under Technical Standards

Patent pool is formal or informal organization for acquire patent rights from multiple patent holders in a single transaction, it can resolve uncertainty and conflict in the use of intellectual property and provide a convenient alternative to assist users with implementation of their technology choices, balancing patent users'interest in reasonable access to intellectual property with patent owners' interest in reasonable return,so it is used as an alternative to address other patent thickets. In addition, network effects, consumer expectations effects, lock-in-in effect and the positive feedback mechanism generated by the development of technology standardization and the trend of competing models between enterprises greatly promote the formation and development of modern patent pools.This dissertation chooses patent pools under the technology standardization as the research object, research. Applying the theory of economics, management and antitrust law and policy science, the dissertation focuses on the formation of patent pool, and tries to explain the reason that corporation choose to form patent pool under technology standard, and the formation characteristics. Then the dissertation analyzes the formation pattern of patent pools under the trend of patent standardization and essential patents assessment mechanism. Finally the dissertation does some research on AVS and IGRS patent pool, compares them with other patent pools discussed in chapter 3. Pool summarizes the whole research and gives some suggestions on how to accelerate the formation of patent pools.Chapter 1 points out the significance of the dissertation and research background, summarizes present academic research patent on patent pools.Chapter 2 analyzes the formation background of patent pools under technical standards from technology, economic, policy and law perspectives. The trend of patent standardization causes patent thicket, then leads to the anti-commons tragedy. Patent pools can not only get rid of patent thickets to and promote the popularization and application of technology standards, but also reduce transaction costs in patent licensing and litigation risks as an effective solution of this anti-commons tragedy. Affected by the network effect, the development of technical standards show features of the installed base effect, consumers expected effects, the positive feedback effect and the lock-ining effect, patent pools can not only enhance these effects of technology standards, as an important means to promote standards, patent pools can also make up potential defects in patent policy of standard setting organization, so they are vigorously promoted and used by the standard patent holding companies and standards setting organizations. The major shift of patent antitrust regulation policy directly contributes to the re-emergence of the modern patent pools and new developments in the world.Chapter 3 analyzes three major formation characteristics of patent pools under technical standards:focus on information technology industry, joined by some advantage enterprises with mutual interests and the standard-setting organizations and third-party management agencies actively promote the formation of patent pools based on data and information of 31 patent pools under technical standards among the year of 1993-2009. The dissertation constructs a two-stage dynamic game model to analyze royalty distribution rules using the method of data statistics and model derivation on the second feature. The results show that the formation of the vertical structure patent pools needs to allocate more license fee to the relatively high cost companies. It can also get another conclusion that patent pools are usually joined by some advantage enterprises with mutual interests, the production cost difference of enterprises would hinder the formation of patent pools.Chapter 4 discusses the formation pattern of patent pools under technology standards in two modes:DVD mode and MPEG mode from the formation path of technology standards, and puts forward that enterprises should actively promote the standardization of patents, build the fence of patent pools, improve the core competitiveness of enterprises, and circumvent barriers of foreign technical and intellectual property rights in China.Chapter 5 analyzes essential patent disclosure policies of 14 standard-setting organizations and point out it is necessary for patent pools to assess the essentiality of patents, then studies the existing essential patents assessment mechanism of patent pools, combining with the review letters of the U.S. Department of Justice on the MPEG-2, DVD 3C as well as DVD 6C patent pools and practical case studies, and find out some potential defects on them, finally proposes several improvements and hope that's useful for building the essential patents assessment mechanism based on China's technical standards.Chapter 6 researches the patent pool formation of AVS and IGRS patent pools, combining with the result of Chapter 3, points out that lack of the initiative to join the international patent pools and strength, good environment of patent pool formation and the weak formation foundation of the patent pools restrict the formation and development of patent pools in China.Chapter 7 summarizes the main points of this dissertation and proposes countermeasures and suggestions for promoting the development of patent pools in China and points out that future research should be strengthened.The innovation of this dissertation:(1) Research the strategic advantages of patent pools with network effects of technical standards, without using the traditional "transaction cost theory", and "resource-based theory". (2) Analyze three major formation characteristics of patent pools under technical standards:focus on information technology industry, joined by some advantage enterprises with mutual interests and the standard-setting organizations and third-party management agencies actively promote the formation of patent pools based on statistical analysis and theoretical model.(3) Summarize and compare the formation patterns of patent pools under the technical standards, propose suggestions to actively promote the rational use of patent pools and patent standardization for Chinese enterprises. (4) Point out it is necessary for patent pools to assess the essentiality of patents with statistical analysis, proposes several improvements and hope that's useful for building the essential patents assessment mechanism based on China's technical standards.