By the end of 19, patent pools have become very common in the United States. However, the development of patent pool began to encounter more and more disputes. Opponents believe that patent pools may lead to monopoly and unfair competition. Members of patent pools often collude with each other, crowd out competitors, control market prices, and charge unreasonable fees for unnecessary patents or even invalid patents. 19 12 in the case of standard bathroom manufacturing co., ltd. v. the United States, the Supreme Court of the United States held that fixing the sales price of this bathroom product patent pool violated the Sherman Act. 1945, Judge Hugo Black even declared in the Hartford-Empire case that there may never have been an economic tyranny that successfully ruled the industry like this patent pool in American history. In a series of cases such as Hartford -Empire and New Wrinkle, the court ruled against the patent pool, and the development of the patent pool fell into a trough until the 1990s. The appearance of patent pool is the inevitable product of the combination of scientific and technological development and patent system. Despite the constant controversy, neither supporters nor opponents deny that the existence of patent pool has a positive effect.
The most important function of patent pool is to eliminate the obstacles of authorization in patent implementation, which is conducive to the popularization and application of patented technology. There are three relationships between different patents: obstacle relationship, complementary relationship and competition relationship. Obstacle patents often appear between prior basic patents and subordinate patents developed on this basis. Without the basic patent, the subordinate patent cannot be implemented. On the contrary, it is often difficult to commercialize basic patents without the assistance of subordinate patents. Therefore, cross-licensing between barrier patents is very necessary. Complementary patents are generally independently developed by different researchers, and they are interdependent and constitute an inseparable part of a product or technical method. Like barrier patents, complementary patents also need mutual authorization to play a role. Alternative patents refer to patents that can be substituted for each other in the implementation of an invention, and they are either/or, not interdependent. For competitive patents, it is generally believed that if they exist in the same patent pool, it will lead to monopoly problems. Therefore, excluding competitive patents from the patent pool has become one of the important contents of the anti-monopoly organ's examination of the patent pool. For barrier patents and complementary patents, if they are put into the same patent pool, the obstacles of mutual licensing between patents will be removed, thus promoting technology popularization. 20011/USPTO issued the White Paper on Patent Pools, suggesting that patent pools should be adopted to overcome the obstacles in biotechnology patent licensing. According to the white paper, "patent pool will help promote the acquisition of bio-patented technology, thus promoting research and development and promoting competition by granting patents".
Another important function of patent pool is that it can significantly reduce the transaction cost in patent licensing. The patent pool implements a one-stop package license for other manufacturers, and adopts a unified standard license agreement and charging standard, so that the licensee does not have to negotiate with the members of the patent pool alone, which greatly saves the transaction costs of both parties. Patent pool can also reduce patent disputes and litigation costs. Patent disputes between patent pool members can be resolved through internal consultation without resorting to court. The list of patents owned by the patent pool and the list of licensed manufacturers will be published. Once the manufacturer infringes the patent right, it will be easy to be found, and it will also reduce the occurrence of indirect infringement. The reduction of patent infringement means the reduction of patent litigation. Moreover, even if there is a patent dispute, the patent pool as a whole participates in the litigation on behalf of the members of the patent pool, which can greatly simplify the litigation procedure. Because the cost of patent litigation is as high as millions of dollars, the patent pool form can greatly save the litigation cost of both parties, not only reducing the burden on enterprises, but also avoiding the huge waste of social legal resources.
The above-mentioned positive role of patent pool has enabled it to come into being and develop, especially today, when the modern patent pool has begun to grow and its industrial influence has become wider and wider. 1997, MPEG-2 patent pool based on MPEG-2 digital video compression standard was established, and its members included 9 companies including Columbia University, Fujitsu, Lucent and Sony. Patent pool controls the global digital video compression industry of MPEG-2 standard. Competitors accused the US Department of Justice of violating the anti-monopoly guidelines for intellectual property licensing, but the Department of Justice finally ruled that the patent pool did not constitute a monopoly. After that, DVD 3C and DVD 6C were established one after another, and their industrial influence spread all over the world. In the commercial review letter of these two DVD patent pools, the US Department of Justice pointed out that although they have defects in the expert review mechanism, "there is no potential to hinder competition". The EU has also successively approved these two patent pools. Recently, patent pools involving 3G communication, digital TV, new generation DVD, biopharmaceuticals and other industries are also taking shape. Since 1990s, governments and courts in Europe and America began to change their preconceptions about patent pools and re-evaluate them. 1995, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission jointly issued the Anti-monopoly Guide for Intellectual Property Licensing, clearly pointing out that patent cross-licensing and patent pools are beneficial to competition under certain conditions. Since then, the US Department of Justice and relevant institutions in the European Union have successively approved important patent pools such as MPEG-2, 1394, DVD 3C and DVD 6C. 200 1, 1, USPTO publicly renamed the patent pool in its White Paper on Patent Pool, holding that "the patent pool in biotechnology will benefit both public and private enterprises", and finally came to the conclusion that "patent pool, especially in biotechnology, can create more innovations and parallel research and development, eliminate patent bottlenecks and accelerate products.