The Economic Efficiency Of Patent Pool And Its Enlightenments To Antitrust Policy

Since the emergence of the first patent pools in the United States in 1856,this organizational form of the patent pools has entered the public's field of vision and has undergone a tortuous course of development.It re-emerged in the high-tech industry in the 1990 s.The “patent jungle” issue in the high-tech industry can be effectively solved by the patent pools organization,so it has been favoured by enterprises and has become a tool for some developed countries to promote the development of high-tech industries.After experiencing the DVD Patent pools in China in 2002,we realized the importance of the patent pools in the high-tech industry.At present,in some high-tech industries in China,patent pools organizations continue to emerge.In order to promote the healthy development of China's patent pools and to avoid the possible infringement of related industries by foreign patent pools,it is necessary to study the economic efficiency of the patent pools and anti-monopoly Regulation.From the perspective of market structure,this paper considers whether there is a spillover effect and whether a patent pool that only contains complementary patents is economically efficient.The main tasks of the study are as follows: First,review domestic and foreign research literature,relevant theories of the patent pools,and the antitrust laws and regulations of the US,Japan,and the European Union's patent pools;Second,divide the market structure based on the theory of vertical market structure.It is divided into two vertical market structures: vertical separation and vertical integration,and a comparative analysis of the static efficiencies under separate market structures for the three conditions of individual licensing,incomplete patent pools and full patent pools;and thirdly,according to the above market allocation.,compare and analyze the dynamic efficiencies under different market structures for the three conditions of the individual license,incomplete patent pools and full patent pools respectively;Fourthly,use the data of the typical TD-SCDMA patent pools in the field of domestic electronic communications to Conduct case studies to discuss the actual impact of the alliance.The research conclusions mainly include the following points:(1)The patent pools will produce different static efficiencies under different market structures,and it does not always have static efficiency;(2)In addition to separating the market structure in the vertical direction,and the upstream manufacturers are dual In the case of oligopolies,with the increase in the number of downstream manufacturers,the patent pools do not have dynamic efficiencies.In other cases,the patent pools always have dynamic efficiencies;(3)The economic efficiency of the patent pools is affected by the market structure,the number of upstream and downstream manufacturers in the market and The effects of spillover effects are significant.According to the main conclusions of this article,two enlightenments are proposed for the antimonopoly regulation of the patent pools:(1)The antitrust review of the patent pools needs to take into account the characteristics of the competitive environment and vertical market structure of the coalition members in the patent pools involved;(2)In the antitrust regulation of the patent pools,the spillover effect and the influence of industrial characteristics should also be considered.