Lars Alkærsig

Intellectual Property Rights Management

1. Introduction 2. IP Archetypes - Rookies, Strategists, Dealers and Strategic Dealers 3. The IP Rookie 4. The IP Dealer 5. The IP Strategist 6. The IP Strategic Dealer 7. IP Strategy 8. Markets for IP 9. IP Archetypes and Demographics 10. IP and Economic Performance Exercises

Orientations and outcome of interdisciplinary research: the case of research behaviour in translational medical science

AbstractThe importance of interdisciplinary research in accelerating the progress and commercialization of science is widely recognized, yet little is known about how academic research self-organizes towards interdisciplinarity. In this paper, we therefore explore the micro-level behavior of researchers as they venture into a promising space for interdisciplinary research, namely translational research—a bridge between basic and applied biomedical research. More specifically, we ask (1) whether the researchers who choose to engage in translational research have a strong scientific record, (2) how interdisciplinary research spanning basic and applied research influences the output of academic research, and (3) how different disciplinary distance in interdisciplinary research contributes to reputational benefits of researchers. We find that for some types of collaboration, interdisciplinarity results in more highly cited research, while in others it is not, and look for explanations for this difference. Our results show that translational research draws higher citations when it involves university researchers from the most basic end of the disciplinary spectrum, and when its issues are directed at basic (rather than applied) research.n

Profile and Trends of FTA and Foresight

This chapter presents the profile and trends of the academic discipline of Future-oriented Technology Assessment (FTA) and its approaches. This chapter presents the profile and trends of the academic discipline of FTA and its approaches. This is achieved through analyses of the development, focus and scientific impact of FTA. As such, this chapter contributes to the discussion on the conceptual development and academic positioning of FTA (or Foresight). The chapter is based on bibliometric analyses of the special issues of five international journals published after the FTA conferences in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2011: Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Futures, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, Science and Public Policy, and Foresight. Methodologically, the paper draws on the principles of Elsevier’s Scopus and Thompson Reuter’s Web of Science. The chapter concludes that the field of FTA seems to have remained remarkably stable over the last decade. As an academic field, FTA has targeted a small number of journals for its publications, which has helped to further define and focus the field. Finally, the chapter concludes that publications in special issues of international journals resulting from the FTA conferences have a similar level of quality and scientific impact as articles published in standard issues of these journals.

The reverse tragedy of the commons: an exploratory account of incentives for under-exploitation in an open innovation environment*

ABSTRACT This paper presents an empirical account of a phenomenon that we refer to as the ‘reverse tragedy of the commons’ in open innovation. The name signifies the ‘under-exploitation’ of intellectual property (IP) under weak appropriability. The name is this graphic because the tragedy is costly, and can also render IP effectively worthless and block innovation in the short to medium term. We propose that the tragedy is borne out of the interaction between enterprise characteristics, a competitive setting and the framework that is set by the policy intervention. This finding is pertinent to policy-makers with regard to the design of research, development and innovation instruments, as well as managers who must determine how to implement open practices in innovation.

Tracing university–industry knowledge transfer through a text mining approach

This study investigates knowledge transfer of university research to industry moving forward from traditional indicators by using methods from computational linguistics. We introduce a novel empirical use of pattern recognition and text mining tools to compare scientific publications to company documents. The contribution of the paper is twofold; first, a new method for tracing knowledge transfer is suggested and, second, our understanding of university–industry knowledge transfer is increased by introducing an additional perspective. We find that common text mining tools are suitable to identify concrete chunks of research knowledge within the collaborating industry. The method proves direct links between published university research and the information disclosed by companies in their websites and documents. We offer an extension to commonly used concepts, which rely either on qualitative case studies or the assessment of commercial indicators for the assessment of university research. Our empirical evidence shows that knowledge exchange can be detected with this approach, and, given some additions in the tools selection and adaption, it has the potential to become a supplementary method for the research community.

THE EFFECT OF PATH-DEPENDENCE AND UNCERTAINTY ON THE VALUE OF MATURE TECHNOLOGIES

This paper examines whether technological advances benefit more from path-dependent or path-creating capabilities. Consistently with recent advances in the literature, we argue that multiple technological trajectories can coexist in a field; therefore, firms may contribute to technological development by recombining in novel ways the capabilities that are widespread in the field, or by building novel and rare capabilities. The paper also conceptualises how technological uncertainty affects the value of such capabilities. Using patent data from 1977 to 2007 for firms developing the hydrocracking technology, the paper finds that both rare and widespread capabilities are valuable to the invention process, thereby suggesting that both path-dependent and path-creating strategies are beneficial for technological development. The paper shows that uncertainty has an inverted U-shaped effect on invention value. In particular, under conditions of low uncertainty, path-dependent capabilities tend to be more valuable.

IP Archetypes and Demographics

This chapter maps similarities in IP practice between firms sharing particular demographic dimensions. We explain, theoretically, how IP practices may overlap among a defined set of organizations. Specifically, we emphasize four mechanisms: isomorphism; heritage of practices; market selection; and resource constraints. These mechanisms operate globally and shape general practice. However, they may also impact the choices made with respect to IP management causing overlap in, for instance, practices across firms within the same geographical area, in the same industry, or of the same size. The chapter also puts forward empirical investigations which suggest that these four mechanisms do indeed operate in numerous dimensions, putting a upper limit on the observed variation in IP practices in a specified set of organizations. In comparing the four IP archetypes with respect to size and composition of employees, we find that IP Strategists and IP Strategic Dealers in general employ a relatively higher number of managers, engineers and scientists with a PhD. These firms tend to be both larger and younger when compared to IP Rookies and IP Dealers.

The IP Strategist

The IP Strategist is typically an innovative firm, which often experiences substantial costs in developing new products. The IP Strategist is well aware of the importance of IP to their business for protecting their investment in product development. To many IP Strategists, the continued survival of the firm depends on the successful use of IP. The IP Strategist employs a formal process when working with IP, a process that is well structured and articulated. Commonly, the IP Strategist will have resources dedicated to working with IP, including a dedicated IP person, though that person may not necessarily be formally trained. The IP Strategist is often internationally oriented due to a saturated home market or to selling niche products with a limited customer base in the home market. This pushes the IP Strategist to work with IP internationally and requires substantial knowledge of IP regulation and conduct in export, transit and production countries. The IP Strategist is reluctant to engage in trading or licensing IF, which is a key point in distinguishing the IP Strategist from the IP Dealer and IP Strategic Dealer. This can be due to a lack of knowledge of the potential benefits, but in many cases it is a deliberate strategic decision due to the firm’s competitive situation.

The IP Dealer

The IP Dealer and the IP Rookie are quite similar, both archetypes are defined by a low level of integrated IP management and lack personnel and resources dedicated to W. However, unlike the IP Rookie, the IP Dealer has had a limited experience of dealing with IP, for example in licensing or trading in W. IP Dealers can be firms who generate value from selling or out-licensing technological inventions to third parties, or firms who buy or in-license well-known, popular brands to further the sales of their existing products. Like the IP Rookie, many IP Dealers find that working with IP is a complex and expensive endeavor. The IP dealers express their own approach to IP as a sign of agility and nimbleness, but also recognize that their approach (being non-strategic) is ad hoc and a highly serendipitous approach to achieving success working with W. Some firms become IP Dealers through choice, having identified a business opportunity in licensing IP rights. However, it may also occur by circumstance, where the IP Dealer is approached by a third party wanting to license one or more of their IP rights or when the firm has infringed a third party right unintentionally and is therefore forced to in-license the IP to keep the firm’s products on the market. No matter why they engage in licensing or trading IP, IP Dealers are more inquisitive than IP Rookies, and may have taken the first steps towards a more organized way of handling W.

Markets for IP

Markets for IP represent opportunities for firms to reap additional rents from IP or to reach out and harvest further competitive advantages through alternative channels. As we will see in this chapter, one reason for becoming active in markets for IP may be that firms are subject to increasing competitive pressure. One way to harness competitive advantages beyond internal ones is to embark on IP exchange with the licensing or trading of IP rights. However, this is not an easy task and there are many pitfalls and dangers. To facilitate this process, firms often employ IP brokers to identify which IP rights might be valuable for the firm to license and to act as mediators in the process of matching up with the most appropriate partners in a fruitful manner. This chapter discusses some of these issues and presents some thoughts to allow the reader to anticipate some of the dangers and understand how they may realize maximum benefit from IP markets.