Pools create collusion cartels
Katarina Mikolajova 16, Katarina Mikolajova got her paper published by the Stanford Law School, 6-22-2016, "No. 22: The Treatment of Software Patent Pools under the United States Antitrust and the European Union Competition Laws", Stanford Law School, https://law.stanford.edu/publications/the-treatment-of-software-patent-pools-under-the-united-states-antitrust-and-the-european-union-competition-laws//susu
However, patent pools may also be restrictive of competition, which is perhaps not so surprising given they are basically agreements between competitors. The collective pricing of pooled patents, greater possibilities for collusion (e.g. through using the mechanism of the pool to exchange competitively sensitive information118) and generally larger number of market participants mean that patent pools need to be scrutinized for antitrust concerns. Specifically, they can lead to creation of price fixing cartels119, market allocation, and reduction of innovation in the form of standard setting or foreclosure of alternative technologies or barriers to the entry of new and improved technologies.120