ABSTRACT
This chapter in the forthcoming case book ‘Intellectual Property Licensing and Transactions: Theory and Practice’ covers IP pooling, with an emphasis on patents. It begins with a discussion of the theoretical benefit of pooling, including efficiency gains and the avoidance of blocking positions, thickets and anti-commons. It then addresses antitrust analysis of pooling transactions from Standard Oil (Indiana) v United States (US 1931) through the 2017 DOJ-FTC Antitrust Guidelines. The chapter then turns to pools created to facilitate standard-setting, including the MPEG-2 and 3GPP Pools, and discusses the concept of complementarity and essentiality of pooled assets. It concludes with brief discussions of Princo v ITC (Fed Cir 2010) and the rise of patent aggregators such as RPX Corp.
Contreras, Jorge L, Intellectual Property Pools and Aggregation (October 21, 2020) in Jorge L Contreras, Intellectual Property Licensing and Transactions: Theory and Practice, forthcoming.
First posted 2020-12-19 07:26:57
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