Applying Multidimensional Quality Module and Hotelling´s T2 to Investigate Competitive Advantages of Digital Versatile Disc Patent Pools

There are numerous empirical investigations of the influencing factors of competition on industry´s or firm´s performances. The objective of this research is to investigate and compare the competitive advantages of two major Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) patent pools (alliances) using multidimensional patent quality module and Hotelling´s T² control chart in the past two decades. Multidimensional patent quality module is used to identify the patent performance shifts in the process while T² control chart is applied to verify their variation in the process. After synthetically analyzing multidimensional patent quality module and T² control charts of DVD 3C and DVD 6C, we find DVD 6C patents collected many high-quality patents and outperformed DVD 3C before the year 1999, the year of DVD 3C formation. However, DVD 6C loses its competitive advantages after pools formations. DVD 3C surpassed DVD 6C in generating high-quality patents after year 1999. Potential licensees will be recommended to ask for licensing from DVD 6C in the initial stage after pool formation and then transfer to DVD 3C licensing program subsequently to maximum their licensing benefits.