General licensing schemes for a cost-reducing innovation

Two general forms of standard licensing policies are considered for a non-drastic cost-reducing innovation: (a) combination of an upfront fee and uniform linear royalty, and (b) combination of auction and uniform linear royalty. It is shown that in an oligopoly, the total reduction in the cost due to the innovation for the pre-innovation competitive output forms the lower bound of the payoffs of both outsider and incumbent innovators. Further, the private value of the patent is increasing in the magnitude of the innovation, while the Cournot price and the payoff of any other firm fall below their respective pre-innovation levels. Sufficiently significant innovations from an outsider innovator are licensed exclusively to a single firm. Otherwise, all other firms, except perhaps one, become licensees. The dissemination of the innovation is generally higher with an incumbent innovator compared to an outsider. For both outsider and incumbent innovators, the monopoly does not provide the highest incentive to innovate; for sufficiently insignificant innovations, it is the duopoly that does so, and, the industry size that provides the highest incentive increases with the magnitude of the innovation. Finally, it is argued that significant innovations are more likely to occur when the innovator is an incumbent firm.Non-drastic innovation, outsider innovator, incumbent innovator, FR policy, AR policy.

PATENT LICENSING BY MEANS OF AN AUCTION: INTERNAL VS. EXTERNAL PATENTEE

An independent research laboratory owns a patented process innovation that can be licensed by means of an auction to two Cournot duopolists producing differentiated goods. For large innovations and close enough substitute goods the patentee auctions o¤ only one license, preventing the full diffusion of the innovation. For this range of parameters, however, if the laboratory merged with one of the firms in the industry, full technology diffusion would be implemented as the merged entity would always license the innovation to the rival firm. This explains that, in this context, a vertical merger is both profitable and welfare improving.Patent licensing, two-part tariff contracts, vertical mergers

Technological spillover and the time distribution of licenses

The aim of this note is to study the optimal licensing of a non drastic cost reducing patented innovation, if the patent holder facing spillover is not only concerned with the optimal number of licenses, but also with their time distrbution. A simple three agents model, a patentee and two adopting firms, elucidates the conditions under which the patent holder prefers exclusive innovation exploitation, giving rise to a monopoly, non exclusive exploitation giving rise to a duopoly of simultaneous adoption or a mix of exclusive exploitation in the first period and non exclusive one in the second period, giving rise to a diffusion process. The results show that for very small cost reductions the patent holder prefers early simultaneous adoption, whereas diffusion, implying asymmetric adoption, is better if the innovation implies a more substantial cost reduction, coupled with a sufficient spillover. Exclusive license is limited to a consistent innovation with very little spillover.licenses

PATENT LICENSING BY MEANS OF AN AUCTION: INTERNAL VS. EXTERNAL PATENTEE

An independent research laboratory owns a patented process innovation that can be licensed by means of an auction to two Cournot duopolists producing differentiated goods. For large innovations and close enough substitute goods the patentee auctions o¤ only one license, preventing the full diffusion of the innovation. For this range of parameters, however, if the laboratory merged with one of the firms in the industry, full technology diffusion would be implemented as the merged entity would always license the innovation to the rival firm. This explains that, in this context, a vertical merger is both profitable and welfare improving.Patent licensing, two-part tariff contracts, vertical mergers

License Auctions with Royalty Contracts for Losers

This paper revisits the standard analysis of licensing a cost reducing innovation by an outside innovator to a Cournot oligopoly. We propose a new mechanism that combines elements of a license auction with royalty licensing by granting the losers of the auction the option to sign a royalty contract. The optimal new mechanism eliminates the losses from exclusionary licensing without reducing bidders’ surplus; therefore, it is more profitable than both standard license auctions and pure royalty licensing. We also take into account that the number of licenses must be an integer, which is typically ignored in the literature

License Auctions with Royalty Contracts for Losers

This paper revisits the standard analysis of licensing a cost reducing innovation by an outside innovator to a Cournot oligopoly. We propose a new mechanism that combines elements of a license auction with royalty licensing by granting the losers of the auction the option to sign a royalty contract. The optimal new mechanism eliminates the losses from exclusionary licensing without reducing bidders’ surplus; therefore, it is more profitable than both standard license auctions and pure royalty licensing. We also take into account that the number of licenses must be an integer, which is typically ignored in the literature.Patents; Licensing; Auctions; Royalty; Innovation; R&D; Mechanism Design

Licensing of a lower-cost production process to an asymmetric Cournot duopoly

An outside inventor of a new production process seeks to license it to Cournot duopolists which have unequal ex ante costs. Distinguishing "leading-edge" innovations (new cost below both firms' costs) from "catch-up" innovations (new cost between the two firms' costs), we compare the equilibria of two license-selling mechanisms: exclusive license auction and non-exclusive price-setting. In contrast to the often-studied case of an innovation that reduces the cost of any licensee by the same amount, we show that licensing of a new process may attenuate the ex ante cost asymmetry, allow the inefficient firm to leapfrog its competitor, and raise the licensee's net profits.cost-reducing innovation; technology licensing

Patent licensing, bargaining, and product positioning

Innovators who have developed advanced technologies, along with launching new products by themselves, often license these technologies to their rivals. When a firm launches a new product, product positioning is also an important matter. We consider a standard linear city model with two firms in which the licenser and the licensee negotiate on licensing and engage in Nash bargaining after they determine their product positions. We investigate how the bargaining power of the licenser affects the product positions of the firms. We find that the licenser more likely chooses the central position when its bargaining power is weak whereas the product position of the licenser accelerates price competition between the firms. We also discuss the welfare implication. We find that the inverse U shape relationship between the bargaining power of the licenser and total social surplus, i.e., neither too strong nor too weak bargaining power of the licensor is optimal.

DOWNSTREAM MERGERS AND ENTRY

We consider an upstream firm selling an input to several downstream firms through observable two-part tariff contracts. Downstream firms can alternatively buy the input from a less efficient source of supply. We show that downstream mergers lead to lower wholesale prices. They translate into lower final prices only when the alternative supply is inefficient enough. Downstream mergers are very profitable in this setting and monopolization is the equilibrium outcome of a merger game even for unconcentrated markets. Finally, the expectation of monopolization stimulates wasteful entry of downstream firms in the industry, which calls for policy intervention.downstream mergers, entry, two-part tariff contracts

License Auctions with Royalty Contracts for (Winners and) Losers

This paper revisits the licensing of a non–drastic process innovation by an outside innovator to a Cournot oligopoly. We propose a new mechanism that combines a restrictive license auction with royalty licensing. This mechanism is more profitable than standard license auctions, auctioning royalty contracts, fixed–fee licensing, pure royalty licensing, and two-part tariffs. The key features are that royalty contracts are auctioned and that losers of the auction are granted the option to sign a royalty contract. Remarkably, combining royalties for winners and losers makes the integer constraint concerning the number of licenses irrelevant