Patent Pools, Competition, and Innovation - Evidence from 20 U.S. Industries under the New Deal

Lampe, Ryan; Moser, Petra

Patent Pools, Competition, and Innovation - Evidence from 20 U.S. Industries under the New Deal

Stanford Law and Economics Olin Working Paper No. 417

67 Pages Posted: 2 Dec 2011 Last revised: 28 May 2014

Ryan Lampe

California State University, East Bay - Department of Economics

Petra Moser

Leonard N. Stern School of Business - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

There are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: May 26, 2014

Abstract

Patent pools have become a prominent mechanism to reduce litigation risks and facilitate the commercialization of new technologies. This paper takes advantage of a window of regulatory tolerance under the New Deal to investigate the effects of pools that would form in the absence of effective antitrust. Difference-in-differences regressions of patents and patent citations across 20 industries imply a 14 percent decline in patenting for each additional patent that is included in a pool. An analysis of the mechanism by which pools discourage innovation indicates that this decline is driven by technologies for which the creation of a pool weakened competition.

Keywords: Patent Pools, Innovation, Patents, Intellectual Property, Economic History

JEL Classification: K00, N00, N42, O31

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Lampe, Ryan and Moser, Petra, Patent Pools, Competition, and Innovation - Evidence from 20 U.S. Industries under the New Deal (May 26, 2014). Stanford Law and Economics Olin Working Paper No. 417. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1967246