On November 10, 2014, the US president called the agency in charge of regulating the media, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) to adopt clear rules on net neutrality. A few months ago, the FCC had proposed to give Internet Service Providers (ISPs) the freedom to charge for favored access to bandwidth the content providers […]
Tag Archives | competition
Can Obama’s initiative ensure that ‘internet fast lanes’ do not develop to the detriment of standard access?
By 18 November 2014 0
Patent races: pros and cons
By 5 November 2014 25
We have already developed on this blog the relationship between competition and innovation (see here and here). This relationship goes both ways. On the one hand, competition affects innovation insofar as the firms’ incentives to innovate depend (in a complex way) on the market structure (i.e., the number of firms on the market, the way they compete, the type […]
Will the new Belgian Telecom Act lead to lower prices?
By 31 January 2014 9
Since October 1st 2013, a new ” Telecom ” Act transposes into Belgian law a series of European directives to better protect consumers in the telecommunications market. A key measure of this law is the opportunity that is now given to consumers to switch operators (fixed and mobile telephony, Internet and television) without any penalty after […]
Is R&D cooperation a steppingstone to collusion?
By 3 November 2013 40
In 2010, the European Commission has revised its rules for the assessment of co-operation agreements between competitors. Some of these so-called “horizontal agreements” have the potential to reduce competition (and thus harm consumers); it is certainly so when the agreements involve price fixing or limiting production; such agreements are clearly prohibited. On the other hand, […]
Are Patent Settlements Anti-Competitive?
By 11 October 2013 0
Settlements of disputes allowing parties to find a mutually acceptable compromise are a legitimate way to end private disagreements. The parties save costly litigation and the public authorities, such as courts and administrative bodies, equally save time and effort. The law and the public authorities should thus support the conclusion of those agreements. Now, some patent settlements […]
Mixing patents and trade secrets for complex innovations
By 9 October 2013 54
In our latest working paper, Francis Bloch and myself analyze the optimal protection strategy for an innovator of a complex innovation who faces the risk of imitation by a competitor. Complex innovations A “complex innovation” is an innovation that can be fragmented into a set of sub-innovations. Although the possibility exists to patent each sub-innovation, innovators […]
Commercialization strategies for start-ups: Examples
By 4 December 2012 0
In a previous post, I asked my students to illustrate the typology that Gans & Stern (2003) proposed for commercialization strategies of technology entrepreneurs. The operation was an enormous success as each of the four generic strategies received a fair number of examples, with very useful references. Here follows a compilation. Many thanks to all the […]
Commercialization strategies for start-ups
By 8 November 2012 31
In a paper published in Research Policy in 2003 (Vol 32, pp. 333-350, click here for the working paper version), Joshua Gans and Scott Stern propose a typology of commercialization strategies for technology start-ups. They start from the observation that “the main problem [for start-ups] is not so much invention but commercialization.” This is because these firms are […]
Mobile industry in Google’s cross-hairs
By 6 March 2012 14
Though a late-comer to the mobile market, Google has nonetheless made a rather spectacular entrance. Android, its operating system for smartphones, is running on millions of mobile terminals manufactured by other companies under their own brands. The key to Google‘s success is the fact that Android is open-source, and thus freely distributed. This has allowed […]
The Premier League case: not the last case on internal market restrictions before the ECJ
By 7 May 2011 0
In the Premier League case, the Court of Justice of the EU (Cases C-403/08 and C-429/08) is asked to give a preliminary ruling on several questions asked by the UK High Court of Justice in relation to the marketing of decoder cards and the satellite transmission of football matches throughout the internal market. The facts […]
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