Intellectual Property and the Standardization Committee Participation in the U.S. Modem Industry

Neil Gandal, Nataly Gantman, and David Genesove

1/01/2005
(Original Publish Date: 7/20/2004)

We take a preliminary look at the interaction between patenting and standardization committee participation in the U.S. modem industry. Both involve a much wider set of firms than the downstream modem manufacturers themselves. Not surprisingly, the two activities are highly correlated across firms. Using five year periods, Granger causality tests show that while patenting is predicted by participation in earlier standardization meetings, meetings participation is not predicted by earlier patenting. We interpret these results as reflecting the timing of standard setting relative to innovation.