标准必要专利FRAND许可原则的效率涵义:经济学的视角

The Efficiency Meaning of the FRAND Licensing Rule for Standard Essential Patents:An Economic Perspective

标准必要专利(Standard Essential Patents,简称SEP)“公平、合理、无歧视”(Fair,Reasonable,and non-Discriminatory,简称FRAND)许可原则重点强调经济效率的提高:“合理”的条件旨在要求给予权利人合理的回报以保护其科技研发的动力和加入标准的积极性,即促进动态效率;“无歧视”旨在保护标准实施过程中实施者之间的有效竞争,避免该下游市场中竞争者之间因SEP许可成本差异造成的竞争扭曲。二者都旨在将“饼”做大。“公平”要素则主要在于“饼”的分配。本文介绍的经济学中的夏普利值方法和事前竞标模型表明,单体SEP的价值取决于对标准的边际贡献和稀缺性,而不是技术复杂性,FRAND费率应该是事先的、标准建立时各种备选技术竞争过程中SEP的市场价值。常用的“从上到下”方法的起点,亦应是事先时间点时刻的预期许可费率。事前分析框架赋予FRAND原则具体的实质性的涵义,使人们对该原则的解读突破了道德和主观价值判断的层面。本文也介绍和推荐建立在博弈论和经济机制设计理论上的Lemley-Shapiro仲裁机制(简称L-S仲裁机制)的思想。在具有高公信力仲裁人的条件下,L-S仲裁机制将大大加快FRAND纠纷解决过程。

The"Fair,Reasonable,and Non-Discriminatory"(FRAND)licensing rule for Standard Essential Patents(SEPs)focuses mostly on economic efficiency.The reasonability requirement calls upon granting the patent owner sufficiency level of return so as to protect its incentives to innovation and to join the standard,namely to promote dynamic efficiency.The non-discriminatory condition aims at protecting effective competition during the implementation process of the SEP,so as to prevent distortion of competition among the implementers due to cost differentials caused by licensing of the SEP.Both requirements aim at making the"pie"larger.The fairness condition focuses on fair division of the"pie".The Shapley Value method and the ex ante auction model reviewed in this article show that the value of an individual SEP depends on its incremental contribution to the standard and its scarcity,rather than its technological complexity,relative to other complementary patents.The FRAND royalty rate is determined by ex ante competition among alternative tec hnologies seeking to join the standard.The aggregate rate in the commonly-used"top down"approach,hence,should be the expected royalty rate at the time when the standard was established.The ex ante analytical framework provides concrete meaning to the FRAND rule and allows one to go behind subjective or even moral judgement in comprehending the mean of this rule.The article also introduces and recommends the so-called Lemley-Shapiro arbitration mechanism which is based on the insight of the mechanism design literature.With a highly reputable and credible arbitration agency,the L-S arbitration mechanism can greatly speed up the process of SEP disputes related to FRAND requirements.