Standards, Patent Pooling and Competition

Abstract

This is a set of 3 short papers on IP and standardisation. The first paper, assuming that in the field of ICT standardisation the future will look like the present, holds that developing corporate and government strategies on this assumption may prove a costly illusion for many actors. A scenarios analysis helps understand how key driving forces shift the tectonic plates of geopolitics, technology, society and corporate realities, and thus radically change the landscapes of codified knowledge, how it is generated, appropriated and controlled. And how this convulsions will impact the regimes of IP and standardisation and affect current incumbents and new entrants. The second paper explores the arguments in issue in the European Rambus case, including some that have not been publicly aired before. It explains what lessons SSOs and companies participating in SSOs can learn from Rambus and makes a broader point about the shortcomings of Article 9 commitment decisions. The third paper, “How to support new technology development and its commercial success by avoiding royalty stacking” supports the view that patent pooling are pro-competitve.

Keywords: European Union, International, Dominance, Intellectual property, Effect on competition

JEL Classification: K21