Innovating standards through informal consortia: The case of wireless telecommunications (original) (raw)

Collective Innovation in a Standard Setting Context

We develop a model of collective innovation for the repeated updating of a technology standard. We characterize equilibria in an open or consortium standard and proprietary standard environments. We highlight a possible free riding problem due to the public goods nature of the open standard. This implies a larger number of …rms in a standard may have an adverse e¤ect on investment. However this e¤ect may be balanced and even o¤set by positive network e¤ects of larger participation. Turning as a second step to a proprietary standard, we show that introducing greater reward to a …rm among the SOS members that provides the critical improvement also can overcome the free riding problem. We derive the rule for setting optimal rewards.

Standard-Creating Coalitions: Open vs. Proprietary Standards

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

1 This paper studies the impact of entrepreneurial decisions regarding standard creation in an oligopolistic market with cooperative R&D investments. Our game-theoretic analysis shows that if standards are open and only multistandard equilibria are allowed, it is impossible to attain a stable multi-standard equilibrium. However, if standards are proprietary, …rms can reach two stable multi-standard equilibria. These stable equilibria imply the creation of two proprietary standards: symmetric in one equilibrium and asymmetric in the other, where the asymmetric equilibrium only exists when the innovating …rms are strongly e¢ cient in R&D. JEL Classi…cation: C72, D21, O31

Standard Setting Organizations and Competition Laws: Lessons and Suggestions from the United States

Complications and Quandaries in the ICT Sector, 2017

Standards are particularly important for products and services, such as telephones, that exhibit so-called "network effects," in which the value of the product or service increases with the number of other users or products that can be used with it. 2 U.S. Dep't of Justice & Fed. Trade Comm'n. (2007). Antitrust enforcement and intellectual property rights: promoting innovation and competition, 34 n. 6, available at https://www.ftc.gov/ sites/default/files/documents/reports/antitrust-enforcement-and-intellectual-property-rightspromoting-innovation-and-competition-report.s.department-justice-and-federal-trade-commission/ p040101promotinginnovationandcompetitionrpt0704.pdf. 3 Id., at 34 ("By agreeing on an industry standard, firms may be able to avoid many of the costs and delays of a standards war, thus substantially reducing transaction costs to both consumers and firms.").

Understanding patents, competition & standardization in an interconnected world

2014

DOI to the publisher's website. • The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review. • The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers. Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal. If the publication is distributed under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the "Taverne" license above, please follow below link for the End User Agreement:

What's New? Standards and Innovation

Designed as a chapter in a book that focuses on the interdisciplinary nature of standards, this paper views how standards affect innovation, given a perspective based on complexity theory and small world networks. .

Industry consortia in mobile telecommunications standards setting: Purpose, organization and diversity

Telecommunications Policy, 2021

DOI to the publisher's website. • The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review. • The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers. Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal. If the publication is distributed under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the "Taverne" license above, please follow below link for the End User Agreement:

Standards Coalitions Formation and Market Structure in Network Industries

We discuss the formation of technical standards platforms in industries with network externalities where firms are free to choose their degree of technical compatibility with competitors. In our model, firms choose affiliation to a technical standards coalition in the first stage of a game, and play an oligopoly game in the second stage. In adding itself to a technical standards coalition, a firm benefits from the network effects of the whole coalition, but also faces increased competition in the output market from other firms in the coalition. Also, the increase of the size of the coalition changes the competitive position of members of that coalition relative to other firms. We find that the extent and size of coalitions at equilibrium depends crucially on the degree of the intensity of network effects. When network effects are very strong, full compatibility prevails. When externalities are slightly weaker, two standards coalitions are formed, a singleton, and one with all remaining firms. On the other extreme, for very weak network effects, the equilibrium is total incompatibility, and for slightly more intense network effects, coalitions are of small size. We characterize a number of other equilibria for intermediate strengths of network externalities.

Intellectual property and standardization committee participation in the US modem industry

Standards and Public Policy, 2006

We take a preliminary look at the interaction between patenting and standardization committee participation in the U.S. modem industry. Both involve a much wider set of firms than the downstream modem manufacturers themselves. Not surprisingly, the two activities are highly correlated across firms. Using five year periods, Granger causality tests show that while patenting is predicted by participation in earlier standardization meetings, meetings participation is not predicted by earlier patenting. We interpret these results as reflecting the timing of standard setting relative to innovation.

Strategic Investment in Technology Standards

Developing technology standards require significant upfront investment expenditures. The value of the resulting technology depends on how it is deployed (e.g., proprietary use versus licensing) and remains uncertain. Hence, the rules governing investments in technology development must be conditioned on the subsequent deployment strategy (e.g. licensing fee) and the nature of uncertainty.