Promoting Competition by Coordinating Prices: When Rivals Share Intellectual Property

Nancy Gallini ()

Economics working papers from Vancouver School of Economics

Abstract: The paper examines technology agreements and the standards process from which they emerge when members supply inputs to the alliance while simultaneously competing with it. Under this overlapping ownership structure, pool members are horizontally related. I show that strategic complementarity between the downstream products owned by a member and those arising from the collaboration is sufficient for a pool to be pro-competitive. Although patent pools are more efficient than uncoordinated pricing, consumers are better off if an outside firm rather than a pool member owns the non-pool competing product. Antitrust rules facilitating efficient IP agreements under overlapping ownership and their implications for the direction of technological change are derived.

Keywords: Industrial Organization; Patent Pools; Intellectual Property; Antitrust Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 56 pages
Date: 2015-12-07, Revised 2015-12-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-ino, nep-ipr and nep-pr~
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ubc:bricol:nancy_gallini-2015-22

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