Veranstaltungen

Abstract:

This paper examines patent oppositions as firm-level responses to newly-granted patents. We present a citation-based construct for measuring the technological lineage to which a newly granted patent lays claims. This network-analytic construct, which we label technology trees, allows us to develop a refined explanation of patent oppositions by taking into account the ownership structures of the technology to which a particular patent relates. An application to the cosmetics industry reveals that the technology tree measure, which is calculated on the level of individual patents, usefully complements established network measures at the industry level, such as triplet counts for measuring patent thickets. This suggests a need for further and more fine grained analyses of technology trees as context in which patent oppositions play out.

Abstract:

We study how competitive mechanisms of external knowledge acquisition affect the emergence of collaborative modes of learning. Specifically, we link the hiring of R&D scientists from competing firms to the subsequent formation of collaborative agreements between these firms – in our setting technology oriented alliances and licensing agreements. Using data on inventor mobility and alliance formation amongst 42 global pharmaceutical over 16 years we are able to show that inventor mobility in fact increases the likelihood of alliance formation in periods following inventor moves. Moreover, our results suggest that this effect becomes more pronounced if more productive inventors are recruited but weaker if the recruiting firm is already familiar with the inventor’s prior employer’s technological capabilities. These findings are more robust for alliances that aim at joint R&D efforts than for pure licensing agreements.

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Abstract
We study bilateral cross-licensing agreements among N (> 2) competing firms. We find that the industry-profit-maximizing royalty can be sustained as the outcome of bilaterally efficient agreements. This holds regardless of whether agreements are public or private and whether firms compete in quantities or prices. We extend this monopolization result to a general class of two-stage games in which firms bilaterally agree in the first stage to make each other payments that depend on their second-stage non-cooperative actions. Policy implications regarding the antitrust treatment of cross-licensing agreements are derived.

Abstract
Using a large scale experiment involving more than a thousand open source software programmers, we match individual monthly contributions to open source programs with behavior in online games we ran. We study how social preferences affect the patterns of production and the overall success of projects. We show in particular that groups with a larger share of reciprocators are more likely to fail, but conditional on not failing, are more successful. The effect is particularly strong for technological areas and development stages characterized by more variance in contributions.

Abstract:

Does the emigration of high-skilled individuals necessarily reduce innovation in the source country due to the loss of human capital? Combining industry- and inventor-level patenting and migration data from 30 European countries, we show that emigration can positively contribute to patenting in source countries due to the existence of reverse knowledge flows.

Both OLS and IV regressions suggest that bilateral knowledge flows (measured by cross-border citations and collaborations) increase in the number of high-skilled migrants. While the high-skilled migrants are not inventing in their home country anymore, they contribute to cross-border knowledge and technology diffusion and thus help poorer countries to catch up to the technology frontier.

Abstract:

For high-tech startups, gaining access to resources and funding is often considered crucial. This need has created technology markets to attract partners and resource providers. Corporate venturing is a form of markets for technology (MfT) that provides nurturing, specialized advice and resources to new technology by investing in startups. However the typical issues involved with MfT – namely misappropriation risks– have made startups reluctant about sharing their key technological information with corporate venture capitalists (CVC), potentially retarding efficient market matching and consequently technology development. Lifting informational constraints may facilitate the market and enable us to measure the pure impact of CVC investment.

Assessing the potential impact of information constraints has been challenging due to severe endogeneity concerns. This study investigates the causal impact of technological information exposure on the likelihood, quality and timing of CVC-startup match formation. We exploit the American Inventor’s Protection Act (AIPA) as an exogenous shock to technological information publicity, which enables us to measure an unbiased impact of information exposure. The results confirm that strategic information withhold by startups has lowered the incident of CVC investments, while informational exposure increases the likelihood, quality and hazard rate of CVC-startup match.

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