Patent protection and the composition of multinational activity: Evidence from US multinational firms

Olena Ivus, Walter Park and Kamal Saggi

Chapter 14 in Technology Transfer, Foreign Direct Investment, and the Protection of Intellectual Property in the Global Economy, 2023, pp 317-345 from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Abstract: This article examines how patent protection in developing countries affects the technology licensing strategy of US multinational firms and the associated technology transfer flows. Strengthening patent rights lowers appropriability hazards and so reduces the firms’ reliance on affiliated licensing as the more secure means of transfer (the internalization effect). However lower appropriability hazards also encourage the firms to increase the volume of technology transfer via licensing both within and outside the firm (the appropriability effect). Which effect prevails depends on the underlying technological complexity of the firms’ product. We find that a strengthening of patent protection in the host country increases the incentive to license innovations to unaffiliated parties. While unaffiliated licensing rises among all firms, the volume of affiliated licensing falls among complex-technology firms but rises among simple-technology firms. The positive appropriability effect on affiliated licensing is strong enough among simple-technology firms that the entire composition of their licensing further shifts towards affiliated parties. The results are significant for recent work on the internalization theories of multinational firms and the interaction between firm strategy and the institutional environment, as well as for patent policy in the developing world, where access to knowledge is critical.

Keywords: International Technology Transfer; Multinational Firms; Trips; Foreign Direct Investment; Oligopolistic Competition; Vertical Contracts; Intellectual Property Rights (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789813233027_0014 (application/pdf)
https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9789813233027_0014 (text/html)
Ebook Access is available upon purchase.

Related works:
Journal Article: Patent protection and the composition of multinational activity: Evidence from US multinational firms (2017)
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:wsi:wschap:9789813233027_0014

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in World Scientific Book Chapters from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().