On the Effectiveness of Patenting Strategies in Innovation Races

Jürgen Mihm (), Fabian J. Sting () and Tan Wang ()
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Jürgen Mihm: INSEAD, 77305 Fontainebleau, France
Fabian J. Sting: Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, 3062 PA Rotterdam, Netherlands
Tan Wang: Dataesp Private Ltd., Singapore 139955

Management Science, 2015, vol. 61, issue 11, 2662-2684

Abstract: Which, if any, of a firm’s inventions should it patent? Should it patent at all? Many companies engaged in an innovation race seek a patenting strategy that balances protection of their intellectual property against the knowledge spillovers resulting from disclosure requirements. Not much is known about factors that determine the patenting strategy best able to resolve this trade-off. Although scholars in various management, economics, and engineering disciplines have researched patents and patenting regimes, little work has addressed the normative issues that pertain to forming an appropriate firm-level patenting strategy. We develop an inventory of real-life patenting strategies and integrate them into a coherent framework. Our simulation model characterizes the optimal patenting choices for different environmental and firm-level contingencies while capturing the dynamics between competing firms. We identify the firm’s research and development strategy as the most salient determinant of its optimal patenting strategy. Our research contributes to establishing a contingency theory of patenting strategies. This paper was accepted by David Hsu, entrepreneurship and innovation.

Keywords: patent strategies; innovation races; NK modeling; games on NK landscapes; strategic interaction on NK landscapes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

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