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Revision as of 00:28, 26 March 2013
, 00:28, 26 March 2013→Papers with reviews in progress
filename={[[Shapiro (2001) - Navigating The Patent Thicket]].pdf}
}
@article{siebert2006jostling,
title={Jostling for advantage: Licensing and entry into patent portfolio races},
author={Siebert, R. and Von Graevenitz, G.},
year={2006},
publisher={CEPR Discussion Paper},
filename={Siebert VonGraevenitz (2006) - Jostling For Advantage Licensing And Entry Into Patent Portfolio Races.pdf}
}
Econ: Theory: Licensing and entry in a thicket CORE PAPER
Licensing in a patent thicket allows firms to either avoid or resolve hold-up. Firms’ R&D
incentives depend on whether they license ex ante or ex post. We develop a model of a
patent portfolio race, which allows for endogenous R&D efforts, to study firms’ choice
between ex ante and ex post licensing. The model shows that firms’ relationships in product
markets and technology space jointly determine the type of licensing contract chosen.
In particular, product market competitors are more likely to avoid patent portfolio races,
since the threat of hold-up increases. On the other hand, more valuable technologies are
more likely to give rise to patent portfolio races. We also discuss the welfare implications
of these results.
Rival firms, in complex product industries, are often owners of complementary assets.1 Therefore,
firms in these industries are more frequently forced to license technologies from each
other than rival firms in other industries. Increasingly, rival firms in complex product industries
protect these component technologies with patents [Hall (2004)]. It is, therefore, likely
that ownership of technologies underlying a complex product is highly dispersed and a “patent
thicket” emerges [Heller and Eisenberg (1998); Hall and Ziedonis (2001); Shapiro (2001)].
Firms caught in a patent thicket must cooperate by licensing technologies, otherwise mutual
blocking of technological improvements is likely and competition degenerates into litigation.
@article{siebert2008does,
