New Uses for Patent Pools

Introduction

In United States patent law, intellectual property owners use patent pools for a variety of purposes.  A patent pool is an agreement between at least two patent owners to license one or more of their patents to one another or to third parties.²   Historically, patent owners have used patent pools to make inventions available to the public, to promote a technical standard, or to create more efficient licensing markets.  Recent interest in patent pools, especially in the high tech industry, suggests other potential advantages.

Patent pools are not a new innovation.  In 1856, sewing machine manufacturers Grover, Baker, Singer, Wheeler, and Wilson all met in Albany, New York to resolve a patent dispute.³  Instead of protracted litigation, they agreed to pool their patents and formed the Sewing Machine Combination to mass produce sewing machines.⁴  To allow manufacturers to produce airplanes for use in World War I, aircraft manufacturers formed an aircraft patent pool in 1917.⁵

A modern example is the MPEG-2 patent pool, formed in 1997 by the International Or...