Search results

This chapter explores the extent to which an innovator is able to capture innovation rents. After examining the two main drivers of such rents, the strength of the appropriability regime and the ownership of specialized complementary assets, the chapter examines how their interaction is so critical in affecting imitation, commercialization options, and firm performance. After reviewing the underlying conceptual framework and empirical evidence, and using a perspective that cuts across both time and industries, the authors then discuss the implications of innovation profits for the resources to be devoted to the discovery of new or improved product and processes.

This chapter explores the extent to which an innovator is able to capture innovation rents. After examining the two main drivers of such rents, the strength of the appropriability regime and the ownership of specialized complementary assets, the chapter examines how their interaction is so critical in affecting imitation, commercialization options, and firm performance. After reviewing the underlying conceptual framework and empirical evidence, and using a perspective that cuts across both time and industries, the authors then discuss the implications of innovation profits for the resources to be devoted to the discovery of new or improved product and processes.

This chapter provides an overview of five modes of intellectual property (IP) protection – patents, designs, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets – available in the United States, the European Union, and Japan. After describing the purposes of and principal differences among the five types of IP protection and outlining the advantages of each form, the chapter provides country- and region-specific information. The authors highlight the aspects of IP law in which international harmonization has, or has not yet, occurred, and offer insights into the relative advantages of various national and regional IP protection systems.

This chapter provides an overview of the five main modes of intellectual property (IP) protection – patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, and designs – available in the United States, the European Union, and Japan. After describing the purposes of and principal differences among the five types of IP protection and outlining the advantages of each form, the chapter provides country- and region-specific information. The authors highlight the aspects of IP law in which international harmonization has, or has not yet, occurred, and offer insights into the relative advantages of various national and regional IP protection systems.

Technological innovation is not simply invention, but rather is a process that includes all the steps from the decision to conduct research to the identification of opportunities and paths for that research to contribute to society through diffusion and commercial application. While scientific discovery is central, it is a single (albeit critical) piece of a complex process involving navigation of the business, legal, regulatory, and economic issues that define the innovation landscape.

The purpose of this paper is to examine, for a sample of ten corporations in three industries (i.e. automotive suppliers, semiconductors, and computer networks), the different strategies that firms undertake when acquiring patent-protected technologies. In particular, the authors analyze and compare two alternative channels for patent acquisition: markets for technology (MFT) and merger and acquisition (M&A) processes.

The authors implement two types of analyses, at both patent and firm level. First, the authors perform an econometric analysis to evaluate whether acquired patented technologies differ in their patent bibliographic characteristics with respect to patent-protected technologies that have been developed internally by the examined firms. The authors then investigate the presence of differences in the characteristics of transacted patents acquired in the MFT or by means of M&A activities. Second, the authors take a firm-level perspective and examine the technology acquisition strategies adopted by selected companies to identify the presence of common patterns, industry-driven specificities and firm peculiarities.

The authors find that acquired patented technologies are, on average, more complex, of higher technical merit and the corresponding patents show a higher legal robustness. Econometric results reveal the presence of differences between M&A and MFT patents: the latter seem to protect less complex, and thus easier to trade, inventions. The analysis of the patterns of patent acquisitions at the firm level shows the presence of different strategies for the external sourcing of patented technologies, based on whether acquired patents protect core or non-core technology areas of the analyzed firms. Such patterns are discussed in the light of the different streams of the literature on intellectual property (IP) management.

This paper makes use of a new and comprehensive data set of the US patent transactions that took place between 2002 and 2010. The authors added detailed data on the evolution of the corporate trees of analyzed firms. The paper contributes to the literature on technology acquisitions and MFT by examining the different channels for patented technology acquisitions. The issue represents an emerging area of interest in the field of IP management.

This paper aims to explore how to build firm’s radical innovation capability from its own knowledge resources. It proposes the impact of knowledge base on radical innovation and outlines why and how appropriability regimes are important throughout the radical innovation capability development process.

Questionnaire and in-depth interviews were used to empirically test the relationship between knowledge base, appropriability regimes and radical innovation capability. To correct for potential endogeneity, a two-stage regression model was used to test the interaction effects

By examining 237 firms involved in R&D activities in high-tech manufacturing firms in China, this paper finds that when a firm have a deep knowledge base, strategic appropriability regime may reduce concerns about problems such as knowledge leakage and innovation appropriation associated with deep knowledge bases. In contrast, legal appropriability regime will also tend to strengthen the positive effect of knowledge breadth on radical innovation capability.

In this study, self-reported measures are used because of their potential for concept specific accuracy; future research might wish to replicate our model and test it with objective data.

The paper includes implications for the fit between the existing internal knowledge base and the way a firm appropriates from its knowledge, and provides entrepreneurs and managers with direct implications about how to manage knowledge resources for radical innovation capability development.

This paper provides a more nuanced understanding of how knowledge base and value appropriability mechanisms jointly affect radical innovation capability development.

Recent years have seen increased participation by women in Science and Technology activities, but parity with men remains a distant goal. This paper provides a framework for improving knowledge on the dynamics of women’s contributions to innovation, as measured through their contributions as inventors.

Analysis was conducted using data from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) database, covering over 40 years from 1976 to 2019. The study provides a breakdown of women’s inventiveness/innovation by technology area, which permits analysis of whether female inventors tend to work individually or as part of a team, as well as analysis of the effects of international networks.

Specific data have been analyzed around innovative activity by women in Spain, providing new insights on gender gaps. Key findings include those recent increases in inventions by women (as measured through patents) have occurred mostly via participation in internationally connected mixed-gender teams. Furthermore, the inventive creativity of women is found to be sector-biased and framed mainly in the chemical sector.

There are no similar contributions using USPTO data for Spanish inventions. This is an original paper that emphasizes the potential of collaborative networks as key driving mechanisms for the reduction of gender gaps and for the larger integration of women into innovation activities, with potential implications for stakeholders at both firm and governmental levels.