IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gii/giihei/heidwp04-2013.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Standard Essential Patents: who is really holding up (and when)?

Author

Abstract

This paper analyzes the effect of injunctions on royalty negotiations for standard essential patents. We develop a model in which courts grant injunctions only when they have sufficient evidence that the prospective licensee is unwilling, in line with the way we understand Courts to operate in Europe. In such a framework the prospective licensee has a powerful strategic tool: the offers that he makes to the patent holder will affect the royalty rate that the Court may adopt as well as the probability of being subject to injunctions (and the liability for litigation costs). We find that despite the availability of injunctions, the holder of a sufficiently weak patent will end up accepting below FRAND rates, in particular when litigation cost are high. We also find that the prospective licensee will sometimes prefer to litigate and the holder of a sufficiently strong patent will always end up in litigation by rejecting offers below FRAND. This arises in particular when the prospective licensee has little to fear from being found unwilling, namely when the trial takes time (so that the threat of injunctions is less powerful), and when litigation costs are low. Importantly, we thus find that hold up (royalties above the fair rate) as well as reverse hold up (royalties below the fair rate) may arise in equilibrium.

Suggested Citation

  • Vilen Lipatov & Gregor Langus & Damien Neven, 2013. "Standard Essential Patents: who is really holding up (and when)?," IHEID Working Papers 04-2013, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:gii:giihei:heidwp04-2013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.graduateinstitute.ch/pdfs/Working_papers/HEIDWP04-2013.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Schankerman, Mark & Scotchmer, Suzanne, 2001. "Damages and Injunctions in Protecting Intellectual Property," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(1), pages 199-220, Spring.
    2. Bernhard Ganglmair & Luke M. Froeb & Gregory J. Werden, 2012. "Patent Hold-Up and Antitrust: How A Well-Intentioned Rule Could Retard Innovation," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(2), pages 249-273, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jay Pil Choi, 2016. "FRAND Royalties and Injunctions for Standard Essential Patents," Global Economic Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(3), pages 233-250, July.
    2. Jens Leth Hougaard & Chiu Yu Ko & Xuyao Zhang, 2017. "A Welfare Economic Interpretation of FRAND," IFRO Working Paper 2017/04, University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics.
    3. Chryssoula Pentheroudakis & Justus A. Baron, 2016. "Licensing Terms of Standard Essential Patents: A Comprehensive Analysis of Cases," JRC Research Reports JRC104068, Joint Research Centre.
    4. Hougaard, Jens Leth & Ko, Chiu Yu & Zhang, Xuyao, 2023. "A conceptual model for FRAND royalty setting," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 167-176.
    5. Horn, Henrik, 2020. "International Jurisdiction over Standard-Essential Patents," Working Paper Series 1314, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 13 Feb 2023.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jeon, Haejun & Nishihara, Michi, 2018. "Optimal patent policy in the presence of vertical separation," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 270(2), pages 682-697.
    2. Alberto Galasso & Mark Schankerman, 2008. "Patent Thickets and the Market for Innovation: Evidence from Settlement of Patent Disputes," CEP Discussion Papers dp0889, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    3. Justus Baron & Jorge Contreras & Martin Husovec & Pierre Larouche, 2019. "Making the Rules: The Governance of Standard Development Organizations and their Policies on Intellectual Property Rights," JRC Research Reports JRC115004, Joint Research Centre.
    4. Jay Pil Choi, 2016. "FRAND Royalties and Injunctions for Standard Essential Patents," Global Economic Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(3), pages 233-250, July.
    5. Gilbert, Richard J. & Katz, Michael L., 2011. "Efficient division of profits from complementary innovations," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 443-454, July.
    6. Turner, John L., 2018. "Input complementarity, patent trolls and unproductive entrepreneurship," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 168-203.
    7. Langinier, Corinne & Marcoul, Philippe, 2009. "Contributory infringement rule and patents," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(1-2), pages 296-310, May.
    8. Schwartz, Eduardo S., 2002. "Patents and R& D as Real Options," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt86b1n43k, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    9. Baron, Justus, 2020. "Counting standard contributions to measure the value of patent portfolios - A tale of apples and oranges," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(3).
    10. Yann Ménière & Sarah Parlane, 2008. "Innovation in the Shadow of Patent Litigation," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 32(2), pages 95-111, March.
    11. Pierre Larouche & Florian Schuett, 2019. "Repeated interaction in standard setting," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 488-509, June.
    12. Horn, Henrik, 2020. "International Jurisdiction over Standard-Essential Patents," Working Paper Series 1314, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 13 Feb 2023.
    13. Vargas Barrenechea, Martin, 2008. "Licensing probabilistic Patents: The duopoly case," MPRA Paper 9925, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Schmitz, Patrick W., 2013. "Incomplete contracts and optimal ownership of public goods," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 94-96.
    15. Anne Layne‐Farrar & Gerard Llobet & Jorge Padilla, 2014. "Payments and Participation: The Incentives to Join Cooperative Standard Setting Efforts," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 24-49, March.
    16. Schmitz, Patrick W., 2013. "Bargaining position, bargaining power, and the property rights approach," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 119(1), pages 28-31.
    17. Oren Bar-Gill & Lucian Arye Bebchuk, 2010. "Consent and Exchange," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(2), pages 375-397.
    18. Nancy Gallini & Suzanne Scotchmer, 2002. "Intellectual Property: When Is It the Best Incentive System?," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 2, pages 51-78, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Matthew D. Henry & John L. Turner, 2010. "Patent Damages And Spatial Competition," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 279-305, June.
    20. Justus Baron & Tim Pohlmann, 2018. "Mapping standards to patents using declarations of standard‐essential patents," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 504-534, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    standard essential patent; injunctions; hold up; reverse hold up;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K41 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Litigation Process
    • L49 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Other
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gii:giihei:heidwp04-2013. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dorina Dobre (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ieheich.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.