Balancing Public and Private Interests in ICT Standardisation: The Case of AVS in China

摘要

This research inquires into how the public interest and private interests can be balanced by a new approach beyond the "Fair, Reasonable and Non Discriminatory" (FRAND) term and Royalty Free in the standardisation process. Using the case of Audio Video coding Standard (AVS) in China, we analyse the mechanisms for treating the Intellectual Property Rights associated with technical contributions of stakeholders and establishing a patent pool with low royalty. The lesson from the AVS case is that, in the Public Dominated Model of standardisation (PDM), public units can successfully contribute intellectual property but cannot easily match the role of private corporations in the standard's implementation. The public-private dilemma in standards development is more complex than that in terms of intellectual property rights.