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Navigating the Patent Thicket: Cross Licenses, Patent Pools, and Standard-Setting

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Author Info
Carl Shapiro (Haas School of Business and Economics Department, University of California, Berkeley)

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Abstract

In several key industries, including semiconductors, biotechnology, computer software, and the Internet, our patent system is creating a patent thicket: an overlapping set of patent rights requiring that those seeking to commercialize new technology obtain licenses from multiple patentees. The patent thicket is especially thorny when combined with the risk of hold-up, namely the danger that new products will inadvertently infringe on patents issued after these products were designed. The need to navigate the patent thicket and hold-up is especially pronounced in industries such as telecommunications and computing in which formal standard-setting is a core part of bringing new technologies to market. Cross-licenses and patent pools are two natural and effective methods used by market participants to cut through the patent thicket, but each involves some transaction costs. Antitrust law and enforcement, with its historical hostility to cooperation among horizontal rivals, can easily add to these transaction costs. Yet a few relatively simple principles, such as the desirability package licensing for complementary patents but not for substitute patents, can go a long way towards insuring that antitrust will help solve the problems caused by the patent thicket and by hold-up rather than exacerbating them.

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Paper provided by Competition Policy Center, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley in its series Competition Policy Center, Working Paper Series with number CPC00-011.

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Date of creation: 01 May 2000
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Handle: RePEc:cdl:compol:cpc00-011

Note: oai:cdlib1:iber/cpc-1015
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Related research
Keywords: patent; patent system; telecommunications; cross-licenses; semiconductors; biotechnology; computer software;

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This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: References listed on IDEAS
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  1. Michael L. Katz & Carl Shapiro, 1985. "On the Licensing of Innovations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(4), pages 504-520, Winter. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Kortum, Samuel & Lerner, Josh, 1998. "Stronger protection or technological revolution: what is behind the recent surge in patenting?," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 247-304, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Shapiro, Carl, 1989. "Theories of oligopoly behavior," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 329-414 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Katz, Michael L & Shapiro, Carl, 1994. "Systems Competition and Network Effects," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(2), pages 93-115, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. David M. Cutler & Elizabeth Richardson, 1997. "Measuring the Health of the U.S. Population," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 28(1997-1), pages 217-282. [Downloadable!]
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