Analyzing Coalition Formation of a Patent Pool Using a Bargaining Model
研究了在专利互补性假设下，专利池的联盟形成如何影响企业利润和社会福利，发现互补性超过阈值时无法形成大联盟，导致反公地悲剧和专利技术使用不足。
In a technology market, either multiple-patent pools are typically formed or dedicated outsiders form a patent pool. Regarding this, my paper analyzes the coalition formation of a patent pool under the general assumption of the complementarity of patents and examines how patent pools affect a firmʼs profit and social welfare. The paper shows that a patent holderʼs grand coalition cannot be formed when its complementarity is beyond a certain threshold. Therefore the tragedy of the anti-commons（one of the multi-marginalization problems）occurs in a technology market, i.e., patent holders always set excessively high prices above the patent costs compared to a joint-profit maximizing level. This causes the under-use of patent technology and loss of consumer surplus and social welfare.