全球智库信息集成服务系统(G2TT): DP11793 How Antitrust Enforcement Can Spur Innovation: Bell Labs and the 1956 Consent Decree

G2TT

来源类型	Discussion paper
规范类型	论文
来源ID	DP11793
	DP11793 How Antitrust Enforcement Can Spur Innovation: Bell Labs and the 1956 Consent Decree
	Monika Schnitzer; Martin Watzinger; Thomas Fackler; Markus Nagler
发表日期	2017-01-18
出版年	2017
语种	英语
摘要	We study the 1956 consent decree against the Bell System to investigate whether patents held by a dominant firm are harmful for innovation and if so, whether compulsory licensing can provide an effective remedy. The consent decree settled an antitrust lawsuit that charged Bell with having foreclosed the market for telecommunications equipment. The terms of the decree allowed Bell to remain a vertically integrated monopolist in the telecommunications industry, but as a remedy, Bell had to license all its existing patents royalty-free. Thus, the path-breaking technologies developed by the Bell Laboratories became freely available to all US companies. We show that in the first five years compulsory licensing increased follow-on innovation building on Bell patents by 17%. This effect is driven mainly by young and small companies. Yet, innovation increased only outside the telecommunications equipment industry. The lack of a positive innovation effect in the telecommunications industry suggests that market foreclosure impedes innovation and that compulsory licensing without structural remedies is ineffective in ending it. The increase of follow-on innovation by small and young companies is in line with the hypothesis that patents held by a dominant firm act as a barrier to entry for start-ups. We show that the removal of this barrier increased long-run U.S. innovation, corroborating historical accounts.
主题	Industrial Organization
关键词	Innovation Antitrust Intellectual property Compulsory licensing
URL	https://cepr.org/publications/dp11793
来源智库	Centre for Economic Policy Research (United Kingdom)
资源类型	智库出版物
条目标识符	http://119.78.100.153/handle/2XGU8XDN/540606
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Monika Schnitzer,Martin Watzinger,Thomas Fackler,et al. DP11793 How Antitrust Enforcement Can Spur Innovation: Bell Labs and the 1956 Consent Decree. 2017.