Pierre Regibeau

Mix and match : product compatibility without network externalities

In industries where consumers can assemble their own systems, firms must decide whether to make their components compatible with those of their rivals. We examine a two-stage game in which two fully integrated firms make their compatibility decisions before competing in prices. The symmetric perfect Nash equilibrium of this game is shown to involve full compatibility. Although compatibility leads to higher prices than incompatibility, it also increases the variety of systems available so that some consumers are better off with compatibility, while others are hurt. If standardization is costless, compatibility increases social surplus but may decrease consumer surplus.

Compatibility and Bundling of Complementary Goods in a Duopoly

This paper presents a simple model of compatibility and bundling in industries where consumers assemble several necessary components into a system that is close to their ideal. The authors show that, for a wide range of parameters, firms will choose to produce compatible components but will offer discounts to consumers who purchase all components from the same firm. However, firms would be better off if they could commit not to provide such discounts. Furthermore, the equilibrium tends to involve socially excessive bundling. Finally, mixed bundling strategies tend to increase the range of parameters over which socially excessive standardization occurs. Copyright 1992 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

A selective review of the economics of standardization. Entry deterrence, technological progress and international competition

We provide a selective overview of the literature on standardization. We first summarize the essential mechanisms underlying the economics of product compatibility and in so doing we review the various frameworks that have been used. Then we survey existing work about the consequences of compatibility on entry deterrence and technological progress. We finally investigate some implications of the literature for trade policy in the presence of network externalities and suggest some directions for future research.

Innovation Cycles and Learning at the Patent Office: Does the Early Patent Get the Delay?

We study the relationship between the length of patent review and the importance of inventions. We build a simple model of the U.S. patent review process. Among the model predictions are that, controlling for a patents position in a new technology cycle, more important innovations would be approved more quickly. Also, the approval delay is likely to decrease as an industry moves from the early stages of an innovation cycle to later stages. These predictions are in line with the evidence we obtain from a data set on U.S. patents granted in the field of genetically modified crops from 1983 to 1999. We also show that failing to account for the innovation lifecycle - as previous studies have done - is likely to bias upwards the estimates of the relationship between delay and importance. Copyright 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. and the Editorial Board of The Journal of Industrial Economics.

The Relationship Between Intellectual Property Law and Competition Law: An Economic Approach

This paper presents an economic analysis of the relationship between Intellectual Property (IP) Law and Competition Law. Contrary to some of the recent debate, our analysis emphasises the separation of IP Law and Competition Law: IP law should concern itself with assigning and defending intellectual property rights, while Competition Law should concern itself with the use of those rights. This separation extends to the enforcement of the law as well, where we argue that once property rights have been assigned, no further distinction based on intellectual or non-intellectual property should be made. While the IP/Competition Law interface has some specificity due to the types of behaviours that tend to arise more frequently where IP is concerned, we argue for a set of principles for Competition Policy that include restraint, a commitment not to revisit ex post the rights granted by IP law, and a commitment to make large changes in property right regimes only when very large changes in ex post regulation occur.

Administrative Delays as Barriers to Trade

Abstract We study a two-country model where two firms, one domestic and the other foreign, must decide when to introduce their new product into a market. The home government may apply an import tariff, an administrative delay, or both to the product of the foreign firm. An administrative delay imposes a waiting period between the time when the quality of the foreign product is determined and the time when the product can actually be sold. Our main interest is the differential effect of the tariff and the administrative delay on the timing of new product introductions and the resulting change in home, foreign and world welfare. We show that administrative delays are less efficient instruments for maximizing home welfare than tariffs. With a tariff, the home government can affect the timing of entry to ensure that the domestic firm moves first at the socially optimal date. Although an optimally chosen delay can achieve the same pattern of introduction, it does not yield any tariff revenues. As a result, if the tariff may be set optimally, administrative delays are not used in a discriminatory manner. If trade liberalization constrains the import tariff to be below its domestically optimal level, discriminatory administrative delays may become part of the optimal policy of the home country. As the optimal delay policy leads to lower levels of world welfare than the optimal tariff, trade liberalization can be welfare decreasing.

“Sham” Litigation: When Can It Arise and How Can It Be Reduced?

In both the U.S. and the EU, the antitrust category of “sham litigation” (in the U.S.) or “vexatious litigation” (in the EU) enables a plaintiff, or a defendant in case this action forms part of a counterclaim, to argue that the introduction of litigation may constitute, under certain conditions, an infringement of competition law. This naturally leads to the question of what is a workable standard for establishing the existence of sham litigation, and how it is possible to distinguish between the legitimate use of the regulatory/litigation process and strategic attempts to use the process in order to restrict competition. Legal and economic literature, as well as the courts, have struggled to define operational tests enabling them to determine the boundaries of the “sham”/“vexatious” litigation antitrust category. This article examines the intellectual underpinnings of this form of abusive/anticompetitive conduct and puts forward a “mechanism design approach” with the aim to reduce the occurrence of sham litigation.

Grantbacks, Territorial Restraints and the Type of Follow-On Innovation: The 'But for...' Defence

We analyse the effect of grantback clauses in licensing contracts. While competition authorities fear that grantback clauses might decrease the licensee?s ex post incentives to innovate, a standard defence is that grantback clauses are required for the patent-owner to agree to license its technology in the first place. We examine the validity of this ?but for? defence and the equilibrium effect of grantback clauses on the innovation incentives of the licensee for both non-severable and severable innovations. Under the 2004 EU Technology Transfer Guidelines , and the guidelines for some other jurisdictions, grantback clauses that apply to ?non - severable? (read ?infringing?) innovations are considered to be less controversial than clauses that apply to ?severable? innovations. We show, to the contrary, that grantback clauses do not increase the patent- holder?s incentives to license when non-severable innovations are at stake but they do when severable innovations are concerned ? suggesting that the ?but for? defence might be valid for severable innovations but not for non-severable ones. Moreover we show that, for severable innovations, grantback clauses can increase the range of parameters for which follow-on innovation by the licensee occurs.