Package Licenses in Patent Pools with Basic and Optional Patents

Abstract

Patent pools are established by the patent holders in order to promote R & D and technological standards, etc. This paper investigates the patent holders’ incentive to form a patent pool, the patent pool’s licensing behavior, and the anticompetitive effect of a patent pool. Our model is characterized by the following two features. First, we consider the different two types of patent: basic and optional. Second, we consider a patent pool that offers two types of a package license: single and multiple. Our results yield some implications for a patent pool that is characterized by the complementarity between basic and optional patents.