Patent Pools: Licensing Strategies in the Absence of Regulation
22 Pages Posted: 7 May 2012
Date Written: March 31, 2012
Abstract
Patent pools allow competing firms to combine their patents and license them as a package to outside firms. Regulators today favor pools that license their patents freely to outside firms, making it difficult to observe the unconstrained licensing strategies of patent pools. This paper takes advantage of a unique period of regulatory tolerance during the New Deal to investigate the unconstrained licensing decisions of pools. Archival evidence suggests that - in the absence of regulation - pools may not choose to license their technologies. Eleven of 20 pools that formed between 1930 and 1938 did not issue any licenses to outside firms. Three pools granted one, two, and three licenses, respectively, to resolve litigation. Six pools issued between 9 and 185 licenses. Archival evidence suggests that these pools used licensing as a means to limit competition with substitute technologies.
Keywords: Patent Pools, Licensing, Patents, Intellectual Property, Economic History
JEL Classification: K00, N00, N42, O34
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
By Jean Tirole and Josh Lerner
-
By Jean Tirole and Josh Lerner
-
Cooperative Marketing Agreements between Competitors: Evidence from Patent Pools
By Marcin Strojwas, Jean Tirole, ...
-
Cooperative Marketing Agreements between Competitors: Evidence from Patent Pools
By Jean Tirole, Marcin Strojwas, ...
-
Patent Pools and Cross-Licensing in the Shadow of Patent Litigation
By Jay Pil Choi
-
Do Patent Pools Encourage Innovation? Evidence from the 19th-Century Sewing Machine Industry
By Ryan Lampe and Petra Moser
-
Do Patent Pools Encourage Innovation? Evidence from the 19th-Century Sewing Machine Industry
By Ryan Lampe and Petra Moser