The less copyright, the more likely there are to be successful standards that promote internet harmonization.
Blind et al. 22 – Professor of Innovation Economics at the Technical University of Berlin, PhD from the University of Freiburg; Senior Director of the Linux Foundation Europe; Senior Director at the Linux Foundation Europe; Senior Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, PhD in Economics from the University of Hamburg.
Knut Blind, Mirko Böhm, Nikolaus Thumm, “Open Source Software in Standard Setting: The Role of Intellectual Property Right Regimes,” Oxford Academic, 10-xx-2022, https://academic.oup.com/book/44727/chapter/378967350
The recursive integration of inputs from standardisation or Open Source can lead to a ‘virtuous circle’ of standards of higher quality and wider dissemination. In contrast the challenges for the FRAND-based SDOs and consortia will also create difficulties for parallel innovation developments. In the long term, higher quality standards due to Open Source inputs and their wider dissemination through Open Source adoption will further increase the pressure on formal SDOs and informal consortia under the FRAND regime.
The limited focus of SDOs on copyright in general and on software or Open Source in particular has a number of economic implications. First, the few SDOs or consortia that deal explicitly with software are able to develop a stronger profile in the standardisation of topics based on software alone or on the combination of software and hardware. Here, the actors with a need for standardisation obviously decide according to the perceived competencies of SDOs, including governance in connection with software. Secondly, the FRAND regime, which is relevant for the licensing of SEPs established in traditional SDOs, in other words members of the International Organization for Standardization