Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Standard setting in markets: the browser war
- 2 Competition through institutional form: the case of cluster tool standards
- 3 The economic realities of open standards: black, white, and many shades of gray
- 4 Coordination costs and standard setting: lessons from 56K modems
- 5 Promoting e-business through vertical IS standards: lessons from the US home mortgage industry
- 6 Intellectual property and standardization committee participation in the US modem industry
- 7 Manipulating interface standards as an anticompetitive strategy
- 8 Delay and de jure standardization: exploring the slowdown in Internet standards development
- 9 Standardization: a failing paradigm
- 10 Standards battles and public policy
- 11 Switching to digital television: business and public policy issues
- 12 Should competition policy favor compatibility?
- Index
- References
6 - Intellectual property and standardization committee participation in the US modem industry
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Standard setting in markets: the browser war
- 2 Competition through institutional form: the case of cluster tool standards
- 3 The economic realities of open standards: black, white, and many shades of gray
- 4 Coordination costs and standard setting: lessons from 56K modems
- 5 Promoting e-business through vertical IS standards: lessons from the US home mortgage industry
- 6 Intellectual property and standardization committee participation in the US modem industry
- 7 Manipulating interface standards as an anticompetitive strategy
- 8 Delay and de jure standardization: exploring the slowdown in Internet standards development
- 9 Standardization: a failing paradigm
- 10 Standards battles and public policy
- 11 Switching to digital television: business and public policy issues
- 12 Should competition policy favor compatibility?
- Index
- References
Summary
Abstract
The authors take a preliminary look at the interaction between patenting and standardization committee participation in the US modem industry. Both involve a much wider set of firms than the downstream modem manufacturers themselves. Not surprisingly, the two activities are highly correlated across firms. Using five-year periods, Granger causality tests show that while patenting is predicted by participation in earlier standardization meetings, meetings participation is not predicted by earlier patenting. The authors interpret these results as reflecting the timing of standard setting relative to innovation.
Introduction
The past two decades have witnessed a proliferation of high-tech consumer electronic products which exhibit network effects. Successful diffusion of these products is often contingent on a single product winning a battle of market standards or firms achieving compatibility among competing standards. The benefit to consumers from purchasing a network good depends on the number of other consumers who eventually purchase the same network good, or a compatible one. This situation has two main implications for competition in network markets, with competing standards:
Consumers' expectations regarding the future size of a network are critical in the adoption decision. On the one hand, the expectation that one technology will become a standard may be self-fulfilling. On the other hand, fragmented expectations may lead to a battle with no winner. Postrel (1990) partly attributes the failure of quadraphonic sound in the 1970s to competing standards.
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- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Standards and Public Policy , pp. 208 - 230Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006
References
- 11
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