Andreas Panagopoulos

Understanding when universities and firms form RJVs: the importance of intellectual property protection

Abstract During the past 20 years we have witnessed an increase in joint research between universities and firms. Nevertheless, this increase, which is largely attributed to the Bayh–Dole Act, has fallen short of expectations. This paper examines the conditions under which a firm will find it profitable to form a Research Joint Venture (RJV) with a university. My results indicate that firms which work on new-technologies, are more likely to form such partnerships. The reason is that these firms optimally choose minimal IP protection (lower profits), in effect sharing their innovation, so as to benefit from increased knowledge spillovers. Thereby, the opportunity cost of joining an RJV for firms (and universities) working on mature technologies is greater, making such partners unlikely candidates for RJVs.

Using the Patent Term Changes in Assessing the Evolution of Patent Valuation from Filing to Maturity

Patents, or literae patentae (open grants) as originally known, are public documents that disclose the particulars of an innovation. In terms of a territorial metaphor, one can think of patents as property deeds that demarcate a technological territory. Such demarcation allows for frictionless tech-transfer because licensor and licensee have at hand a chart of the technology. When too many patents accumulate, as is the present case of affairs, the technology’s borders can become foggy because numerous neighbouring patentees may own overlapping technologies. So what was once a technology with a clearly attached value to it becomes an uncertain asset, in which case tech-transfer is plagued by higher transaction costs as only courts can demarcate the innovation’s borders. Effectively what was assumed as an open grant can become a quasi literac clausae (close grant) until such demarcation takes place. How to avoid such conversion has stirred up a policy debate on how to evade patent overpopulation; see Correa (2014). Since policy makers must have an appreciation of the usefulness of patents as RD a free lunch no doubt.1 Thus, in the latter case, the present value of a possible tenure extension (of a few weeks/months) must be harder to pinpoint in advance. An innovator who is constrained in terms of her patent filing volume (and must prioritise her patenting) should be inclined to file the patents considered as more valuable first. Having to choose between a patent whose value is hard to pinpoint in advance and one of known technical quality, she should rationally opt for the latter. Ergo, the introduction of TRIPS, by inadvertently offering a possible extension of patent term created a metric of patent self-valuation. The metric is simple: patents encompassing valuable technologies must be given priority and filed before the deadline. In view of this metric, we acquire information for all utility patents that were filed around June 8th 1995 for the following technology fields: Chemicals, Computers & Communications, Drugs & Medical, Electrical & Electronics, and Mechanicals. Our data is both at the industry level and the firm level, and it includes continuing applications that were filed prior to the deadline; these are applications that were originally filed prior to the unexpected regime change. The data indicates that Drugs & Medical patents, and Chemical patents, were significantly more likely to be filed before the deadline than patents in any other field. This result, which does not change at the firm level and when accounting for continuations, accords with survey evidence that finds patents as being more valuable (as incentives to innovate) to the pharmaceutical and chemical industry; see Cohen, Nelson and Walsh (2000).

Patents As Negotiating Assets: Patenting Versus Secrecy For Startups

We analyse a sequential innovation model and show that relatively narrow patent rights can facilitate a market in which startups’ patents are traded as negotiating assets. In this market, the trade of patents, on top of monopoly profits, conveys an extra surplus from the patents’ capacity to affect future tech‐transfer negotiations. This surplus, which stems from a patents potential ability to exclude infringers and the corresponding enforcement spillovers that patents confer, may incentivise innovations that would not have been possible under trade secrecy, improving social welfare.

Profiting from innovation through cross-border market co-creation and co-opetition: the case of global pharmaceuticals

We study the impact of the new intellectual property (IP) regime, as shaped by international agreements such as the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), on the competitive positions of emerging country firms and advanced country multinational enterprises (AMNEs). Drawing on ideas from the IP, international business, and strategic management literatures, we formalize the market co-creation perspective and extend it to the emerging country – AMNE context. Using the pharmaceutical industry as our focus, we show that market co-creation-based co-opetition is preferable to both emerging and advanced country firms when the former can leverage their firm- and country-specific advantages and complementary assets to co-create new market space, even as they compete for value capture. We further show that co-opetition is fostered when the bargaining power of the AMNE (afforded through trade agreements) is counterbalanced by actions of emerging country firms and a robust IP law interpretation and enforcement by the host countrys courts.

Fostering Coopetition Through Market Extension and Co-Creation in the Global Pharmaceutical Sector

We explore conditions under which multinational pharmaceutical companies (MNPCs) can profit from their cross-border operations, by collaborating and competing (co-opeting) with local companies in emerging economies. The proposed collaboration takes the form of market co-creation and an ?open-innovation?-type model. This complements more conventional competitive strategies, such as acquisitions of local firms by MNPCs. In order to support our argument, we adopt cooperative game theory and submit-employ the assumption, that firms in developing-emerging countries can increase the size of the market, through their possession of complementary assets and capabilities, to those of the ?developed? countries. In such a case, we show that collaboration between firms in the two sets of countries of the ?open innovation?-type, that fosters market co-creation, can also foster trade, thereby allowing both firms and nations to profit. We also show how provisions from TRIPS, (and more recently ACTA), can be leveraged to foster the collaborative outcome.

International Collaboration through Market Co-Creation: Strategies for Emerging Country Firms

Drawing on ideas centred on market co-creation and complementary assets, we propose that developing and emerging country (DEC) pharmaceutical firms, which operate in an increasingly challenging env...