TILEC Work In Progress: Michela Bonani

Technology standards have increased their importance in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry as a required feature to ensure the interoperability among independently designed products. Moreover, modern standards have become quite complex, embodying a large number of patents held by many firms. Antitrust authorities and standard setting organizations (SSOs) have become more concern about the patent policies regarding essential patents holders. Starting from 2000, this concern was followed by several changes across standard organizations to more restrictive policies. Using a novel database and exploiting the IEEE’s policy changes in 2015, this research aims to shed lights on how the SSOs’ patent policies affect the innovation efforts of firms in the standard development.