Diffusing New Technology without Dissipating Rents: Some Historical Case Studies of Knwoledge Sharing

James Bessen and Alessandro Nuvolari

LEM Papers Series from Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy

Abstract: The diffusion of innovations is supposed to dissipate inventors' rents. Yet in many documented cases, inventors freely shared knowledge with their competitors. Using a model and case studies, this paper explores why sharing did not eliminate inventors' incentives. Each new technology coexisted with an alternative for one or more decades. This allowed inventors to earn rents while sharing knowledge, attaining major productivity gains. The technology diffusion literature suggests that such circumstances are common during the early stages of a new technology.

Keywords: technological change; technology diffusion; knowledge sharing; collective invention; patents (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-11-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-knm and nep-ure
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Journal Article: Diffusing new technology without dissipating rents: some historical case studies of knowledge sharing (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2017/28

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