Patenting and voluntary standards: tensions between the domains of proprietary assets and "public goods" in the innovation of network technologies

This article focuses on the interaction between intellectual property rights (IPRs) regimes and committee-based standards development organisations (SDOs) in terms of the commodification of knowledge. IPRs and SDOs are institutions that are designed to codify technical knowledge with quite different purposes though. The resulting documents describe a private right (patent) or a public good (a standard). The article associates the former with a commodification and the latter with a de-commodification process of technical knowledge, and it explores a situation in which these respective purposes have come into conflict. The scope for conflict is examined and analysed in light of the controversy, which emerged during the standardization of GSM telephony in Europe

Promoting legitimacy in technical standardization

In this article we examine the legitimacy of committee standardization as an alternative to pure market processes of technical standardization of information and communication technology (ICT). We argue that not only mandatory (regulative) but also voluntary (coordinative) standards require some kind of democratic legitimacy. While the question of how to achieve this legitimacy has become central to today's changing world of standards, this situation is not adequately reflected in how the mounting legitimacy-deficit is treated. We note here that there remains a tendency to think of the legitimacy-deficit primarily in terms of "input legitimacy" criteria. At the same time we observe a tendency for standardization organizations (SDO) to orient efforts towards achieving "output legitimacy" by developing standards that are regarded by diverse groups of (legitimizing) stakeholders as constituting "good standards". This article therefore applies the distinction between input and output legitimacy to the rapidly evolving standardization landscape, arguing that it is necessary to expand the analysis of the legitimacy-deficit in the formal bodies responsible for ICT standards. We address what democratic legitimacy means in terms of standards and standardization, discuss why it is particularly important here, and explore how it has been addressed. Current examples indicate that in order to arrive at "good" standards SDO extend and redefine the cognitive and normative frame of standardization. This frame change helps to include non-technical and non-commercial interests and values without directly involving the growing variety of stakeholders and civil society advocates in the process

Standards dynamics and industrial organization in the mobile telecom sector

Purpose - The purpose of this mainly conceptual paper is to analyze key changes in the institutional setting for standardization and to discuss what they indicate about further developments of the mobile sector. The intention is that this conceptual analysis will complement and contextualize the analysis of Nordic players found in the other papers of this special issue. Design/methodology/approach - The paper is concerned with issues of industrial organization. The paper presents a treatment of industrial dynamics in them mobile telecom sector and the changing role of standards in it. We approach the substantial changes in the mobile telecom sector, focusing on the correspondence of the changes in the standards system to overall industry dynamics. Empirical information from the Symbian case is used to illustrate the hypothesis of standardization process and of the industry at large. Findings - The paper identifies changing patterns in the organization of technological standardization which represents a microcosm of the larger reorganization of the sector. Nordic actors, whose present position owes much to success in linking capabilities to sequential mobile standards. The paper draws out implications of the limits to "intergenerational leveraging" in standards. Originality/value - The major contribution of the paper is to focus on changes in the organization of the standardization process in order to discuss the industrial dynamics of an industry which is undergoing a period of rapid change. Its reference to industrial dynamics perspective allows it to link the literature on dominant design to the field of standards research

Emerging coordination mechanisms for multi-party IPR holders: linking research with standardization

The standards setting process relies to an increasing degree on successfully integrating up-to-date research and development results (R&D). The successful interaction between research and standards can provide important social benefits. But, to do so, a number of challenges need to be faced. One key and persistent challenge is to provide the conditions in which the cross-purposes of formal standards-setting bodies and intellectual property rights can equitably be accommodated. This means balancing the collective gains to be reaped from the elaboration of a common standard against the individual gains to be allocated to relevant individual rights-holders. This discussion paper focuses on approaches to the reemerging tension between intellectual-property-rights and standards. It points to the importance that successful approaches can have to improve the interaction the between research and standardization activities. It then goes on to consider the (re)emergence of two approaches that are indicative of the changing relationship between intellectual property rights and standards-setting bodies