Patent pools, vertical integration, and downstream competition

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Reisinger, Markus; Tarantino, Emanuele
• 署名单位: Frankfurt School Finance & Management; University of Mannheim
• 刊物名称: RAND JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0741-6261
• DOI: 10.1111/1756-2171.12266
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 168-200
• 关键词: exclusive contracts; common-agency; INNOVATION

摘要

Patent pools are commonly used to license technologies to manufacturers. Whereas previous studies focused on manufacturers active in independent markets, we analyze pools licensing to competing manufacturers, allowing for multiple licensors and nonlinear tariffs. We find that the impact of pools on welfare depends on the industry structure: whereas they are procompetitive when no manufacturer is integrated with a licensor, the presence of vertically integrated manufacturers triggers a novel trade-off between horizontal and vertical price coordination. Specifically, pools are anticompetitive if the share of integrated firms is large, procompetitive otherwise. We then formulate information-free policies to screen anticompetitive pools.