On The Patent Cross-licensing And Patent Pool Licensing Model Anti-monopoly Regulation - Theory And Practice

The crossing-license and patent pool are necessary in the knowledge-based economy century for the situation of the patents thicket and the uncertainty for infringement on other patents when a new technology patent is used for production. The participants may have somewhat monopoly power in some technology field which is anticompetitive in the operation of cross-license and patent pool license, that is why they should be regulated by antitrust law and in fact, many legal characteristics of them is based on the consideration of antitrust risks.On the basis of the discussion of the relationship between the intellectual law and antitrust law, the disquisition give a brief introduction for the basic theory and applicable principles for the antitrust regulations in this area in USA. In addition, by the deep introduction of Antitrust Guideline for the Licensing of Intellectual Property issued by the U S Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission and several Business Review Letters on MPEG and DVD pools issued by the antitrust division of U S Department of Justice, the disquisition provides the basic principles for operation of the patent pool, such as the inclusion rule, voluntary rule and bona fide rule ,as well as many specific legal characteristics of the patent pools.Recently, the establishment and implementation of the standard, such as the WAPI, IGRS, AVS, EVD, TD-SCDMA, become the focus in China. The standard relies on the a series of essential patents and its implementation is inevitably in connection with license of patent, in which the patent pool is a customary one for the license of patents of many international standard. The introduction by the disquisition for the antitrust regulations in this area in USA and the specific legal characteristics for the patent pool will give a helpful reference for the standard setting organizations in China.