The Operating Mechanism Of Standard Alliances And Its Effect In The Foundation Of Homegrown Standards

In recent years, the interaction between technical standards and technology patents has been playing an increasingly important role. Setting technical standards on the basis of patents, then guiding the industry development and seeking excess profit has become a competitive weapon of developed countries and leading companies, which is profoundly changing the rules of standards competition. Especially when one technical standard involves several enterprises' patents, the enterprises will combines with each other to found the standard alliance that establishes the industrial technical standard, which has become an important trend of standardization field.Supported by the theories of technical standards, patent pools and standard alliances, this paper uses multi-case study as research method to explore the operating mechanism of standard alliance and its effect in the foundation of homegrown standards. First, representative cases are selected as research samples, and the operating mechanism of standard alliances is explored according to within-case analysis and cross-case analysis. And then, cases of Chinese enterprises using the form of standard alliances to found homegrown standards are studied. The foregoing mechanism is verified and the mechanism of standard alliances founding homegrown standards is epurated.In order to coordinate members' interests, standard alliances generally adopt patent pools to manage intellectual property. Patent pools play an important role in the operating of standard alliances. When the idea of founding technical standard is determined, the construction of patent pool and the making of technical standard are executed on schedule. On one side, members submit patents to the administrative organization of the alliance. Some of the patents are judged as essential patents and put into the patent pool. On the other side, drafts of technical standard are collected and discussed. After the drafts are demonstrated and revised, related organization will make the technical standard public and solicit opinions. During the period of standardization, enterprises outside of the alliance can pay for the license by negotiating with the administrative organization of the patent pool.Under the background of technical standards citing more and more patents, standard alliances internalize technical transaction and decrease transaction cost, which provides an effect way for the technical integration of related patents. Standard alliances run members' intellectual property rights through patent pools, which is helpful to the persistent development of cooperative innovation and promotes the extension of technical standards. Meanwhile, as cooperation organizations of a certain field of enterprises, universities and institutes, standard alliances become an important vector for government supporting homegrown standards. In the process of founding homegrown standards, building standard alliances on the basis of patent pools will be an effective way for accelerating the process of technical catching-up and founding homegrown standards.