Class 9: Patent Pools
Reading: Please read Philip B. Nelson’s 2007 article Patent Pools: An Economic Assessment of Current Law and Policy (.pdf) from the Winter 2007 edition of the Rutgers Law Journal. Focus particularly on Sections I (“Introduction) and VI (“Ongoing Policy Issues).
Also, please take a quick look at the websites for three patent pool administrators: MPEG-LA, Via Licensing and Sisvel.
Lastly, please familiarize yourself with the current debate over the video codecs H.264 and Ogg Theora in connection with HTML5, with a particular focus on the role of MPEG-LA. This article from July 2009 provide a good overview; here’s an article that provides one perspective on the current state of the debate.
Slides:
Available here in .pdf, and here in .ppt.
