Increasing returns and path dependence in knowledge creation and their effects on the dynamics of patent pools

Ozgur Aydogmus

Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 2022, vol. 62, issue C, 467-477

Abstract: This paper analyzes pro-competitive patent pools using basic premises of knowledge creation and their reflections for modern patent pools in the presence of intellectual property rights (IPR). We argue that cumulativeness and combinatorial nature of knowledge production correspond to path dependence and increasing returns in the realm of the knowledge economy. This correspondence allows us to model dynamics of modern patent pools using nonlinear Polya urns. We show that increasing the number of firms contributing to a patent pool of complementary patents or increasing the rate of having infringing patents favor the contributing firms’ coexistence chance. On the other hand, increasing these parameters negatively affects the non-contributing firm’s relative number of patents. In particular, the probability that the frequency of the latter firm’s patents vanishes asymptotically increases as these parameters grow. As a result, we conclude that the probability that the market will be dominated by the firms contributing to pro-competitive patent pool increases as the pool enlarges.

Keywords: Patent pools; Procompetitive patents; Knowledge creation; Urn processes; Patent dynamics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C60 L12 O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954349X22000959
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:streco:v:62:y:2022:i:c:p:467-477

DOI: 10.1016/j.strueco.2022.06.006

Access Statistics for this article

Structural Change and Economic Dynamics is currently edited by F. Duchin, H. Hagemann, M. Landesmann, R. Scazzieri, A. Steenge and B. Verspagen

More articles in Structural Change and Economic Dynamics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().