HELIN Task Force on Licensing Agreements Final Report, 2/28/2010

Final report of the HELIN Task Force on Licensing Agreements to Robert Aspri, Executive Director of the HELIN Library Consortium, a group eminating from the HELIN Reference Committee, to investigate the issue of consortial licensing agreements for electronic books

Does Licensing Resolve Hold Up in the Patent Thicket?

In a patent thicket licensing provides a mechanism to either avoid or resolve hold up. We study the choice between ex ante licensing to avoid hold up and ex post licensing to resolve it. Firms’ choice of licensing contract is studied in the context of a patent portfolio race. We show that high expected blocking leads to ex ante licensing while ex post licensing arises if expected blocking is low but realized blocking is high. Also, ex ante licensing reduces firms’ R&D incentives. A sample selection model of licensing is derived from the theoretical model. In this framework theoretical predictions on effects of blocking are tested with data from the semiconductor industry. We show that licensing helps firms to resolve blocking. However, licensing is not a cure all: it decreases as fragmentation of property rights increases and arises mainly between large firms with similar market shares. Using a treatment effects model we also confirm the prediction that ex ante licensing reduces the level of R&D investment

Should a Licensing Market Require Licensing?

Many circumstances fair use should separate the idea that the copyright owner should be compensated for a use from the idea that the copyright owner should be able to control that use. The licensing-market cases provide a perfect vehicle for dividing rights but if a use is considered unfair because the copyright owner could have gotten paid to permit that use, the argument may or may not justify compensating the copyright owner for the loss, but it does not justify giving the copyright owner control over the defendant\u27s use. Here, Lemley explains the development of the licensing-market rationale, critiques of that rationale, and its significance for the scope of the fair use doctrine

How Licensing Resolves Hold-Up: Evidence from a Dynamic Panel Data Model with Unobserved Heterogeneity

In a patent thicket licensing provides a mechanism to either avoid or resolve hold-up. Firms' R&D incentives will differ depending on how licensing is used. In this paper we study the choice between ex ante licensing to avoid hold-up and ex post licensing to resolve it. Building on a theoretical model of a patent portfolio race, firms' choices of licensing contracts are modelled. We derive several hypotheses from the model and find support for these using data from the semiconductor industry. The empirical results show that firms' relationships in product markets and technology space jointly determine the type of licensing contract chosen. Implications for the regulation of licensing are discussed. We estimate a dynamic panel data model with unobserved heterogeneity and a lagged dependent variable. A method suggested by Wooldridge (2005) is employed to estimate a random effects probit model using conditional maximum likelihood

Licensing in the Patent Thicket - Timing and Benefits

Licensing can be a solution for hold-up in patent thickets. In this paper we study whether licensing is an effective solution for hold-up. To do this we distinguish between ex ante and ex post licensing. A theoretical model shows that firms’ expectations of blocking in a patent thicket determine whether they license ex ante while ex post licensing arises if expected blocking was low but realized blocking turns out to be high. It can also be shown that ex ante licensing will allow firms to reduce their patenting efforts. A sample selection model of licensing is derived from the theoretical model. Applying this to data from the semiconductor industry we show that licensing does help firms to resolve blocking. However, the probability of observing licensing decreases as fragmentation of property rights increases and arises mainly between large firms with similar market shares. Licensing experience is also an important determinant of licensing. As expected ex ante licensing allows firms to reduce the level of patenting.Hold-Up Problem; Licensing; Innovation; Patent Race; Patent Thicket

Dual licensing in open source software markets

Dual licensing has proved to be a sustainable business model for various commercial software vendors employing open source strategies. In this paper we study the main characteristics of dual licensing and under which conditions it represents a profitable commercial strategy. We show that dual licensing is a form of versioning, whereby the software vendor uses the open source licensing terms in order to induce commercial customers to select the proprietary version of the software. Furthermore, we show that the software vendor prefers dual licensing to a fully proprietary strategy when the customers are very sensitive to the reciprocal terms of the open source license

Jostling for Advantage or Not: Choosing Between Patent Portfolio Races and Ex Ante Licensing

Complex high technology industries are increasingly affected by patent thickets in which firms’ patents mutually block the use of important technologies. Firms facing patent thickets patent intensively to acquire bargaining chips and use licensing to ensure freedom to operate. Such licensing allows rivals to either avoid or resolve hold-up from blocking patents. R&D incentives depend on whether licensing takes place ex ante or ex post. We model the choice between ex ante licensing and entry into patent portfolio races leading to ex post licensing. It is shown that higher degrees of blocking lead firms to license ex post, while stronger product market competition leads firms to license ex ante. Empirical results support these theoretical predictions

Unilateral vs. cross licensing:A theory and new evidence on the firm-level determinants

This paper examines the firm level determinants of the incidence of cross-licensing. It develops a simple stochastic theory explaining such incidence, and confirms its implications based on new dataset of licensing contracts by Japanese firms. Among major findings are: (1) Licensing probability has an almost linear relationship with the size of a potential licensor. (2) Cross-licensing is more prevalent between large and symmetric firms. (3) A licensing contract with only patents is more likely to involve cross-licensing than that with only trade secret. (4) A licensor is on the average larger than a licensee.cross-licensing licensing contracts patent

Licensing in a Vertically Separated Industry

The literature on technology licensing has ignored the importance of market power of the input supplier. In this paper we examine the impact of licensing in the downstream industry when the firms in the upstream industry have market power. We show that licensing in the downstream industry can make the upstream industry more competitive. However, licensing in the downstream industry is profitable if and only if licensing changes the concentration in the upstream industry. We also show that a monopolist in the final goods market has the incentive for licensing if licensing changes the market structure of the upstream industry.Entry, Licensing, Downstream industry, Upstream industry

Insider patent holder licensing in an oligopoly market with different cost structures: Fixed-fee, royalty, and auction

The issue of the optimal licensing contract in firms having different cost structures is studied when the innovator is a producing patent holder who has three alternative licensing strategies, namely, the fixed-fee, royalty rate, and auction strategies. We conclude that the auction licensing strategy is not the best strategy when the innovator is a producing patent holder. This finding differs from that of Kabiraj (2004) where the auction licensing method is the optimal licensing strategy when the innovator is a non-producing patent holder. However, when we only compare two of the licensing methods, namely, the fixed-fee licensing method and the royalty licensing method, we conclude that if the inside innovator licenses to only some of the firms, then the royalty licensing method will be the best strategy. This result is different from that of Fosfuri and Roca (2004), who concluded that if only some of the licensees obtain a licensing contract, then the fixed-fee licensing method will be the best choice for a producing patent holder.Licensing strategy, Cost structure, Auction