STANDARD SETTING, PATENTS, AND HOLD-UP

Standard setting raises a variety of antitrust issues. Cooperative standard setting often involves horizontal competitors agreeing on certain specifications of the products they plan to market, implicating core antitrust issues regarding the boundary between cooperation and collusion. The American Bar Association’s Handbook on the Antitrust Aspects of Standards Setting presents legal analysis of many such issues.1 Shapiro and Varian discuss business strategy in standard setting, and Shapiro addresses the boundary between cooperative standard setting and collusion.2