Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.6, 2019

 

Multilateral Trade, Market Rules and the Pricing of Technical Standards

(Abstract)

 

Ma Yide

 

The interactive use of technology hastens the adoption of technical standards, and trade in technical standards licensing is an important part of global multilateral trade. The pricing rules for unilateral technical standards have led to a large number of lawsuits, overwhelming technology-based market entities and giving them no time to upgrade their economic structures. The implementation of technical standards requires a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory multilateral trade system. As the legal form of technical standards, the pricing rules for standard-essential patent licensing fee are core contents of the rules of multilateral trade in technology. The existing pricing rules show that different countries are engaged in actively or passively formulating self-interested unilateral rules outside the multilateral trade system, resulting in the fragmentation of technical standard pricing rules. Integrating technical pricing rules with market factors, reshaping the functions of the multilateral trade system, modernizing the rules of multilateral trade, and increasing the adaptability of the multilateral trade system in relation to global value chains are feasible solutions to pricing rule conflicts. China is a beneficiary and participant in the open economy. It should advocate the establishment of market-based standard-essential patent pricing rules so that countries with different levels of development can share in the fruits of the technological revolution under the multilateral trade system. This will promote global equilibrium and inclusive and universal development, and will thus contribute Chinese wisdom and a Chinese solution for the building of a community of shared future for mankind.