Secétariat du BETA « Evolutionary Stability in Common Pool Resources » Evolutionary Stability in Common Pool Resources

Abstract The Tragedy of the Commons refers to the dissipation of a commonpool ressource when any appropriator has free access to it. Under the behavior of absolute payoff maximisation, the common-pool resource game leads to a Nash equilibrium in which the resource is overexploited. However, some empirical studies show that the overutilization is even larger than the Nash equilibrium predicts. We account for these results in an evolutionary framework. Under an imitation-experimentation dynamics, the long run stable behavior implies a larger exploitation of the resource than in the classical Nash equilibrium

Secétariat du BETA « The Shapley value as a guide to FRAND licensing agreements » The Shapley value as a guide to FRAND licensing agreements

Abstract We consider the problem of specifying Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory agreements faced by standard-setting organizations. Along with Keywords: patent licensing, Shapley value, core The authors are thankful to Paul Belleflamme and Pavitra Govindan for useful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft. ͳǤ Over the last decades, standard setting organizations have played a decisive role in the development and commercialization of new technologies, and are still of growing importance. These collaborative bodies aim at promoting the emergence of a technical standard by ensuring the compatibility and interoperability of related devices. In order for a standard to effectively spread out as a reference, third parties must be guaranteed a straight access to the required intellectual property rights. This is why patents covering the different aspects of the standard are gathered together in a patent pool and licensed as a single package. Augustin Cournot established in 1838 that a merger between two monopolists producing complementary goods generates both a higher joint profit and a lower final price by preventing the accumulation of margins. Shapiro (2001) points out that Cournot's complements problem arises when two or more firms own intellectual property rights required for the development of a product. If they do not coordinate, each patent holder will charge an excessive price in exchange of the access to its intellectual property right, without taking into account the impact of its decision on the level of sales of the final product and on the revenue of all patent holders. The complements problem tends to be particularly important in the context of standard setting since access to all complementary intellectual property rights must be granted in order to ensure full compatibility with the standardized technology. This situation is referred to as the "tragedy of anti-commons" by Heller and Eisenberg (1998) because, in contrast with the tragedy of the commons, the fragmentation of the intellectual property rights leads to an underutilization of the associated standard. Standard-setting organizations are groups of firms that set common standards for a particular technology to ensure compatibility and interoperability of the devices they manufacture. They have played a decisive role in the development and the commercialization of new technologies over the last decades and are still of growing importance. They are composed of upstream firms holding the intellectual property rights, downstream firms manufacturing goods based on the standard, and vertically integrated firms with characteristics of both categories. In order for a standard to effectively spread out as a reference, anyone must be guaranteed a straight access to the related technology. This is why patents covering the different aspects of the standard are gathered together in a patent pool and licensed as a single package. That prevents excessive independent pricing and reduces transaction costs through the possibility of one-stop shopping