The Analysis Of Efficient Patent Pool Based On The Substitute And Complementary Patent

Patent pools are agreements between two or more patent owners to license one or more of their patents as a package to one another, or to third parties willing to pay the associated royalties. Patent pools have a positive role in promoting competition:reducing transaction costs and litigation fee, and promote technical standards and enhance social welfare. China's AVS standard (digital audio and video codec technology) using a patent pool management, all of the patents in the standard was packaged in 1 yuan royalties, which greatly facilitated the diffusion of technology transfer and promotion of our digital industry. However, the patent pool also have the effect of reduce competition, such as the abuse of market power in the formation of patent pools, and lead to the problem of collective pricing or output restrictions, forcing users to pay expensive patent royalties. In 2005,3C and 6C patent pools impose high royalties to China's DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) manufacturers, which caused tremendous damage to our industry. Each DVD can only earn＄1 profit. So, what is an effective patent pool, and how to treat it is very important.There are two levels of problems toward patent pools:firstly, on one thing, the foreign patent pool rely on active participation in the global market competition, and build trade barriers, so that the development of related businesses struggled to domestic enterprises and suffer the pain of huge royalties; on another, the number of domestic patent pool is very few, only formed such as AVS, IGRS, 3G patent pool, can not effectively promote competition and innovation. Secondly, the patent pools have two effects on competition:one-stop shopping convenience containing complementary patent, and excessive charges and the existence of invalid patent; Combined with technical standards, patent pools can promote the application of the standard, but on the other may emerge the free rider problem. Therefore, this article analysis what constitutes an efficient patent pool from three points.The paper is organized as follows:Chapter I is the introduction, explained the background and the main contents of the paper. Chapter II gives the concepts of the article involved, such as the patent pool, complementary and alternative patents, technical standards and the different mode of patent pools, pave the way for the following analysis.ChapterⅢis the main part, analysis the patent pool from three different perspectives for efficiency:firstly on the relationship between the patent, the patent pool is divided into alternative and complementary patents. What is the distinction between complementary and alternative, what is the different effect, when alternative patents should be included into the patent pool patents, and the necessary condition for patent pools to promote social welfare issues; Secondly the technical standards, when combined with standards, the patent pool have the effect of pro-competition. But the free rider problem may emerge, which conducive to the increase of social welfare. We come out the conclusion that ask the patent owner who have essential patents whether they are willing to license patents, rather than voluntary; Thirdly on the different mode of patent pool, the use of third-party management ensure the patent pool and the objectivity of the assessment of core technologies, and competitive downstream market structure helps resolve patent stacking caused by patent thickets problem.Based on the analysis of efficiency,We analyse the patent pool with a typical case in chapterⅣ. Integrated with complementary patent, GSM promote competitive advantage, so that members can pool the other's patents for free. Combination with technical standards, MPEG-2 patent pool promote the application of technical standards. Chapter V summarizes the competitive effect of patent pool in China and put forward policy recommendations. Patent pools have two sides of promoting competition and restricting competition. It is necessary to pick up the anti-monopoly arm and regulate patent pools. Under our country's background, we can learn from other country and promote the formation of patent pools. Based on the analysis of paper, we come out conclusion from complementary and alternative patent, technical standards and patent pools'operation mode.