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The Inverse Cournot Effect in Royalty Negotiations with Complementary Patents

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  • Llobet, Gerard
  • Padilla, Jorge

Abstract

It has been commonly argued that the decision of a large number of inventors to license complementary patents necessary for the development of a product leads to excessively large royalties. This well-known Cournot-complements or royalty-stacking effect would hurt efficiency and downstream competition. In this paper we show that when we consider patent litigation and introduce heterogeneity in the portfolio of different firms these results change substantially due to what we denote the Inverse Cournot effect. We show that the lower the total royalty that a downstream producer pays, the lower the royalty that patent holders restricted by the threat of litigation of downstream producers will charge. This effect generates a moderation force in the royalty that unconstrained large patent holders will charge that may overturn some of the standard predictions in the literature. Interestingly, though, this effect can be less relevant when all patent portfolios are weak making royalty stacking more important.

Suggested Citation

  • Llobet, Gerard & Padilla, Jorge, 2016. "The Inverse Cournot Effect in Royalty Negotiations with Complementary Patents," CEPR Discussion Papers 11624, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11624
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Intellectual property; Standard setting organizations; Patent licensing; R&d investment; Patent pools;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • L24 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Contracting Out; Joint Ventures
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

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