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8 January 2009, We examine the effect of collective rights organizations (CROs) on upstream innovation. CROs are established to facilitate downstream use, such as production and downstream innovation, of upstream intellectual property. We compare CROs with two alternative royalty redistribution rules, two different upstream innovation environments and two different anti-trust rules. Most CROs increase upstream R&D incentives by increasing licensing profit but this may lead to over-investment. We observe that when the market is ex-ante asymmetric (only one firm has ability to develop one of the technologies), unequal royalty distribution in favor of the one firm may be ex-post efficient but may result in under investment in the complementary technology. Thus in addition to balancing the trade-off between ex-ante (dynamic) efficiency and ex-post (static) efficiency as in the case of a single intellectual property, CROs must achieve the balance among members., 科学研究費補助金（特別推進研究） = Grant-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Research

January 2009, We examine third-party collective rights organisations (CROs) such as clearinghouses that license innovations on behalf of inventors when downstream uses require licenses to multiple complementary innovations. We consider two simple royalty redistribution schemes, two different innovation environments and two different antitrust rules. We show that in most cases CROs increase incentives to invest in R&D as they increase profits from licensing. However, incentives to invest of inventors who have the unique ability to develop a crucial component may be weakened. We also show that CROs may increase or decrease expected welfare, and are more likely to be beneficial when R&D costs are relatively high, and/or the probability of success for inventors is relatively low., グローバルCOEプログラム = Global COE Program

21 January 2008 -- p. 1, We examine the effects of third-party clearinghouses that license intellectual property on behalf of inventors when downstream uses of IP require licenses to multiple complementary innovations. We consider different simple clearinghouse royalty redistribution schemes, and different innovation environments. We show that clearinghouses generally increase incentives to invest in R&D as they increase efficiency in licensing. However, they may reduce expected profits of inventors who have the unique ability to develop a crucial component. We also show that clearinghouses also may increase or decrease expected welfare, and are more likely to be beneficial when R&D costs are relatively high, and/or the probability of success for inventors is relatively low., 科学研究費補助金（特別推進研究） = Grant-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Research

14 September 2007, We consider patent pool formation by owners of essential patents for differentiated standards that may be complements or substitutes in use. Pooling improves coordination in terms of royalty setting within a standard but provokes a strategic response from licensors in the competing standard. We characterise the incentives to form and defect from pools within standards and show how pool formation and stability depend on competition between standards. We also examine strategic patent pool formation by consortium standards and show that policies promoting compatibility of standards may increase or decrease welfare depending on the effects on the incentives to form pools., 科学研究費補助金（特別推進研究） = Grant-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Research

30 June 2007, We focus on downstream uses that combine multiple intellectual property rights and examine the effects of introducing an intellectual property clearinghouse that reduces transaction costs associated with licensing. We show that this causes equilibrium royalties to rise in some cases and may harm licensors because clearinghouse by itself does not eliminate the 'tragedy of the anticommons'. Downstream welfare effects may also be positive or negative and we characterise the effects on downstream manufacturers and final consumers. We also show that total welfare is most likely to increase following a transaction cost reduction when the number of intellectual property rights per downstream use is small, or if rights are relatively substitutable in downstream use, but it is also possible for welfare to decrease., 科学研究費補助金（特別推進研究） = Grant-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Research

REVISED, 28 September 2007, This paper reviews and compares patent pools, intellectual property clearinghouses and copyright collectives as systems for promoting efficient access to licensable intellectual property in a 'market for technology' (Arora et al, 2001). These systems promote downstream use of innovations by economizing on search and transaction costs in licensing, as well as potentially mitigating the conditions that lead to the 'tragedy of the anti-commons' and other coordination problems in multilateral licensing. We compare and classify different systems in terms of their features, review some existing systems, and discuss their economic characteristics., 科学研究費補助金（特別推進研究） = Grant-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Research

21 June 2007, We focus on downstream uses that combine multiple intellectual property rights and examine the effects of introducing an intellectual property clearinghouse that reduces transaction costs associated with licensing. We show that this causes equilibrium royalties to rise in some cases and may harm licensors due to the 'tragedy of the anticommons'. Downstream welfare effects may also be positive or negative and we characterise the effects on downstream manufacturers and final consumers. We also show that total welfare is most likely to increase following a transaction cost reduction when the number of intellectual property rights per downstream use is small, or if rights are relatively substitutable in downstream use, but it is also possible for welfare to decrease.

This paper reviews and compares patent pools and intellectual property clearinghouses as alternative systems for efficient access to licensable intellectual property in a 'market for technology' (Arora et al 2001). These systems improve aid downstream research and development by economizing on search and transaction costs faced by licensees, as well as potentially mitigating externalities among owners of complementary intellectual property that lead to the 'tragedy of the anti‐commons' (excessively high license fees). We compare the features and economic effects of different systems, review some successful examples, and suggest directions for future economic research.

We examine the effects of provision of information about seller qualities by a third-party in a directed search model with heterogeneous sellers, asymmetric information, and where prices are determined ex post. The third party separates sellers into quality-differentiated groups and provides this information to some or all buyers. We show that this always raises total welfare, even if it causes the informed buyers not to trade with low quality sellers. However, buyers and some sellers may be made worse off in equilibrium. We also examine the provision of information by a profit maximizing monopoly, and show that it may have an incentive to overinvest in the creation of information relative to the social optimum.