Modern patent pool is the product of the combination of intellectual property rights and technical standards, which endows the patent pool with a strong market dominance and increases the risk of intellectual property abuse. Facing the challenge of foreign patent pool, we should deal with it from the following aspects.
1) China should step up the establishment of an anti-monopoly mechanism to regulate the patent pool.
The Anti-monopoly Law has been promulgated, and it is suggested to add provisions regulating patent pool in the Patent Law, the Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Patent Law and related legal interpretations. In addition, we should learn from the experience of the United States, formulate corresponding administrative regulations and clarify relevant regulatory agencies, standardize the activities of patent pools in China, and change the current situation of foreign patent pools being "lawless" in China.
2) Strengthen the coordination among related enterprises and between enterprises and the government.
Practice has proved that if enterprises join foreign patent pools to negotiate patent rates and licensing terms, the effect is often much stronger than that of enterprises acting alone. Therefore, we should actively play the role of industry associations, enterprise alliances and relevant government agencies. For example, China Electronic Audio Industry Association (CAIA) once participated in the DVD patent pool fee negotiation on behalf of China DVD enterprises, and the third generation mobile communication standard patent pool fee negotiation was conducted by the Institute of Telecommunications of the Ministry of Information Industry on behalf of China enterprises. Speaking with one voice will undoubtedly increase our strength at the negotiating table.
3) Enterprises should strengthen independent innovation.
Strive to make breakthroughs in core technology research and development, gain more independent intellectual property rights, and enhance the right to speak in technical standards and patent pools. Through independent innovation and mastering the core technology, we can bypass the foreign patent pool or join the patent pool and obtain cross-licensing. Only in this way can we completely change the current passive situation and fundamentally curb the abuse of intellectual property rights by foreign patent pools.
Patent pool: a patent licensing trading platform composed of patentees. On the platform, the patentee licenses horizontally, and sometimes opens horizontal and vertical licenses to third parties under unified licensing conditions. The licensing rate is determined by the patentee. There are still patent licensing problems among patentees on the "patent pool" (joint licensing) platform.
Patent collection is an agreement reached by two or more patentees at first, through which one or more patents are licensed to one party or a third party, and later developed into an intellectual property collection formed by putting multiple intellectual property rights (mainly patents) as cross-licensing objects into a package license. The original intention of patent pool is to speed up patent authorization and promote technology application. The management of patent pool is standard pricing and the key link of industrial alliance. It not only affects the interests of alliance members, but also affects the end users, which directly determines the development of standards. Patent pool based on standards usually has the following basic characteristics: there are clearly defined standards; There is a set of procedures or third-party experts to decide which patents are core; The technology license drafted and approved by the core patent holder should at least follow the principles of rationality and non-discrimination (that is, Rand principle); The patent pool management institution is designated by the core patent holder * * * and is responsible for the management of the patent pool; Core patent holders reserve the right to license their own patents outside the patent pool.
Reasons for the rise of patent pool:
1) The patent obstacle formed by "patent thickening" needs a patent pool to eliminate the complexity of modern science and technology. It's not the same as before. The patents involved in a product are becoming more and more intensive, and the so-called "patent jungle" phenomenon has appeared. The "patent jungle" greatly increases the risk of obstacles among many patents, prompting patentees to form a patent pool to ensure the smooth implementation of patents.
2) The fine division of labor in the industry and the continuous lengthening of the industrial chain have created a patent pool. Due to the increasingly fine division of labor and the continuous extension of the industrial chain, the number of manufacturers gathered in an industry is far more than in the past, and the technical correlation between upstream and downstream enterprises is getting higher and higher. In this case, if there is no patent pool, the transaction cost of many enterprises seeking patent license will be very amazing, and the one-stop packaging license method of patent pool is undoubtedly the most efficient choice.
3) The standardization of industrial technology gave birth to the patent pool. Under the background of global integration, with the influence of network effect of technical standards, the role and position of industrial technical standards have become more and more prominent in recent years. The competition of technical standards has become the commanding height of world industrial competition. Modern industrial technical standards are often combined with patents, and the formation process of technical standards is also accompanied by the formation process of patent pool. Once the technical standard is established, the licensing of a large number of patents contained in the standard may become complicated and become a stumbling block to the promotion of the standard. At this point, the best way to solve this problem is to form a patent pool with relevant patentees. Whether it is MPEG-2, DVD or 3G, patent pool has become an indispensable part of standard implementation.
4) The shortening of modern technology cycle has accelerated the formation of patent pool. The development of modern science and technology has advanced by leaps and bounds, and the upgrading of technology has accelerated. If a technology can't be industrialized quickly, it will soon become a thing of the past, not only unprofitable, but also unable to recover the research and development costs. However, the process of technology industrialization is often tired by the time-consuming and laborious patent authorization process, and people have to use the patent pool to solve this problem quickly. For example, the DVD-3C Alliance was first established because Philips, Sony and Pioneer couldn't wait for the long patent negotiations and were worried about missing the development opportunities of the DVD industry.