Investment in innovation , complementary assets , IP hazards
Abstract:
Thickets of partially overlapping patent rights raise costs to secure IPR for innovation.
Fragmented IP ownership raises coordination costs to resolve mutual blockades.
Inadvertent patent infringement poses the risk of fruits from investments to be exploited.
A gap in economic commitment levels may be exploited if capital-intensive innovators
have more invested application-specifically than inadvertently infringed IPR owners. I
study whether fragmentation or heterogeneous capital-intensities among owners of
overlapping patents affect propensities to invest in innovation. I find that firms with small
patent portfolios are less likely to invest in innovation if IPR is fragmented. Firms with
large patent portfolios are less likely to invest in innovation if cited patent owners have
smaller stocks of fixed capital. This suggests that effects of patent thickets on innovation
are not evenly spread among innovating firms.
Das Dokument wird vom Publikationsserver der Universitätsbibliothek Mannheim bereitgestellt.