A Tale of Two Standards: Patent Pools and Innovation in the Optical Disk Drive Industry

The impact of patent pools on the rate and direction of technological change is an open question in both theoretical and empirical studies. Economic theory makes no unequivocal prediction. By contrast, empirical studies of patent pools, to date, have largely concluded that patent pools have been ass...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:NBER Working Paper Series 2013-03, p.18931
Main Author: Flamm, Kenneth
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Disk drives
Economic theory
Innovations
Market shares
Optical disk
Studies
Subcontractors
Technological change
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The impact of patent pools on the rate and direction of technological change is an open question in both theoretical and empirical studies. Economic theory makes no unequivocal prediction. By contrast, empirical studies of patent pools, to date, have largely concluded that patent pools have been associated with reduced rates of technical innovation in the industries studied. This study differs from previous empirical studies of patent pools by focusing primarily on direct measures of innovation in product markets, rather than on indirect correlates of innovation (like patents), and by exploiting variation over time in how pools were organized in the same technology area.
ISSN:0898-2937
DOI:10.3386/w18931