IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecorec/v81y2005i252p51-60.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal Licensing Policy in Differentiated Industries

Author

Listed:
  • NISVAN ERKAL

Abstract

This paper analyses the policy implications of licensing between producers of differentiated goods. We consider and compare two‐part tariff, fixed fee royalty and collusive licensing contracts. Under the optimal licensing policy, there will be no technology transfers if the innovation size is sufficiently small and degree of product differentiation is sufficiently low. Licensing deals that involve drastic innovations are always socially desirable. In the limit, as product differentiation converges to zero, it becomes socially desirable to transfer drastic innovations only. The range of innovation sizes that is socially optimal to transfer increases as product differentiation increases.

Suggested Citation

  • Nisvan Erkal, 2005. "Optimal Licensing Policy in Differentiated Industries," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 81(252), pages 51-60, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecorec:v:81:y:2005:i:252:p:51-60
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4932.2005.00216.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2005.00216.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2005.00216.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fauli-Oller, Ramon & Sandonis, Joel, 2002. "Welfare reducing licensing," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 192-205, November.
    2. Arora, Ashish & Fosfuri, Andrea, 2003. "Licensing the market for technology," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 277-295, October.
    3. X. H. Wang & Bill Z. Yang, 1999. "On Licensing Under Bertrand Competition," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 106-119, June.
    4. Sougata Poddar & Uday Bhanu Sinha, 2004. "On Patent Licensing in Spatial Competition," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 80(249), pages 208-218, June.
    5. Muto Shigeo, 1993. "On Licensing Policies in Bertrand Competition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 257-267, April.
    6. Morton I. Kamien & Yair Tauman, 1986. "Fees Versus Royalties and the Private Value of a Patent," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 101(3), pages 471-491.
    7. Kenneth Arrow, 1962. "Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources for Invention," NBER Chapters, in: The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity: Economic and Social Factors, pages 609-626, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Rockett, Katharine, 1990. "The quality of licensed technology," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 559-574, December.
    9. Choi, Jay Pil, 2001. "Technology transfer with moral hazard," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(1-2), pages 249-266, January.
    10. Gallini, Nancy T, 1984. "Deterrence by Market Sharing: A Strategic Incentive for Licensing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(5), pages 931-941, December.
    11. Michael L. Katz & Carl Shapiro, 1985. "On the Licensing of Innovations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(4), pages 504-520, Winter.
    12. Wang, X Henry & Yang, Bill Z, 1999. "On Licensing under Bertrand Competition," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 106-119, June.
    13. Michael L. Katz & Carl Shapiro, 1986. "How to License Intangible Property," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(3), pages 567-589.
    14. Henry Wang, X., 2002. "Fee versus royalty licensing in a differentiated Cournot duopoly," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 253-266.
    15. Fauli-Oller, Ramon & Sandonis, Joel, 2003. "To merge or to license: implications for competition policy," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 655-672, May.
    16. Katharine E. Rockett, 1990. "Choosing the Competition and Patent Licensing," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(1), pages 161-171, Spring.
    17. Bharat N. Anand & Tarun Khanna, 2000. "The Structure of Licensing Contracts," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 103-135, March.
    18. Anand, Bharat N & Khanna, Tarun, 2000. "The Structure of Licensing Contracts," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 103-135, March.
    19. Wang, X. Henry, 1998. "Fee versus royalty licensing in a Cournot duopoly model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 55-62, July.
    20. Nirvikar Singh & Xavier Vives, 1984. "Price and Quantity Competition in a Differentiated Duopoly," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(4), pages 546-554, Winter.
    21. Nisvan Erkal, 2005. "Optimal Licensing Policy in Differentiated Industries," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 81(252), pages 51-60, March.
    22. Richard Gilbert & Carl Shapiro, 1997. "Antitrust Issues in the Licensing of Intellectual Property: The Nine No-No's Meet the Nineties," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 28(1997 Micr), pages 283-349.
    23. Nancy T. Gallini & Brian D. Wright, 1990. "Technology Transfer under Asymmetric Information," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(1), pages 147-160, Spring.
    24. Beggs, A. W., 1992. "The licensing of patents under asymmetric information," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 171-191, June.
    25. Marjit, Sugata, 1990. "On a non-cooperative theory of technology transfer," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 293-298, July.
    26. Morton I. Kamien & Yair Tauman, 2002. "Patent Licensing: The Inside Story," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 70(1), pages 7-15, January.
    27. Kamien, Morton I., 1992. "Patent licensing," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications, in: R.J. Aumann & S. Hart (ed.), Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 331-354, Elsevier.
    28. Macho-Stadler, Ines & Martinez-Giralt, Xavier & David Perez-Castrillo, J., 1996. "The role of information in licensing contract design," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 43-57, January.
    29. Shapiro, Carl, 1985. "Patent Licensing and R&D Rivalry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 25-30, May.
    30. Lin, Ping, 1996. "Fixed-Fee Licensing of Innovations and Collusion," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(4), pages 443-449, December.
    31. Aidan Hollis, 2002. "Strategic Implications of Learning by Doing," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 157-174.
    32. Kamien, Morton I. & Oren, Shmuel S. & Tauman, Yair, 1992. "Optimal licensing of cost-reducing innovation," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 483-508.
    33. Mukesh Eswaran, 1994. "Licensees as Entry Barriers," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 27(3), pages 673-688, August.
    34. Andrea Shepard, 1987. "Licensing to Enhance Demand for New Technologies," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 18(3), pages 360-368, Autumn.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sudipto Bhattacharya & Claude d’Aspremont & Sergei Guriev & Debapriya Sen & Yair Tauman, 2014. "Cooperation in R&D: Patenting, Licensing, and Contracting," International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, in: Kalyan Chatterjee & William Samuelson (ed.), Game Theory and Business Applications, edition 2, chapter 0, pages 265-286, Springer.
    2. Sen, Debapriya & Tauman, Yair, 2007. "General licensing schemes for a cost-reducing innovation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 163-186, April.
    3. Amir, Rabah & Encaoua, David & Lefouili, Yassine, 2014. "Optimal licensing of uncertain patents in the shadow of litigation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 320-338.
    4. Sen, Debapriya, 2005. "Fee versus royalty reconsidered," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 141-147, October.
    5. Debapriya Sen & Giorgos Stamatopoulos, 2009. "Technology Transfer Under Returns To Scale," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 77(3), pages 337-365, June.
    6. Bagchi, Aniruddha & Mukherjee, Arijit, 2014. "Technology licensing in a differentiated oligopoly," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 455-465.
    7. Sen, Debapriya, 2005. "On the coexistence of different licensing schemes," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 393-413.
    8. Mukherjee, Arijit, 2010. "Licensing a new product: Fee vs. royalty licensing with unionized labor market," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 735-742, August.
    9. Kabiraj, Abhishek & Kabiraj, Tarun, 2017. "Tariff induced licensing contracts, consumers’ surplus and welfare," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 439-447.
    10. Arijit Mukherjee, 2010. "Technology licensing under convex costs," Discussion Papers 10/05, University of Nottingham, School of Economics.
    11. Zhao, Dan, 2017. "Choices and impacts of cross-licensing contracts," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 389-405.
    12. Yair Tauman & Debrapiya Sen, 2012. "Patents and Licenses," Department of Economics Working Papers 12-05, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.
    13. Rabah Amir & David Encaoua & Yassine Lefouili, 2011. "Per-Unit Royalty vs Fixed Fee: The Case of Weak Patents," Working Papers halshs-00595493, HAL.
    14. Li, Changying & Geng, Xiaoyan, 2008. "Licensing to a durable-good monopoly," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 876-884, September.
    15. Zhao, Dan & Chen, Hongmin & Hong, Xianpei & Liu, Jingfang, 2014. "Technology licensing contracts with network effects," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 136-144.
    16. Arijit Mukherjee & Yingyi Tsai, 2013. "Technology licensing under optimal tax policy," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 108(3), pages 231-247, April.
    17. SCHOLZ, Eva-Maria, 2014. "Licensing to vertically related markets," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2014020, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    18. Arora, Ashish & Gambardella, Alfonso, 2010. "The Market for Technology," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 641-678, Elsevier.
    19. Tarun Kabiraj, 2018. "Fee vs. Royalty Licensing and Consumers’ Welfare," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 16(3), pages 749-767, September.
    20. Stefano Colombo & Luigi Filippini, 2015. "Patent Licensing with Bertrand Competitors," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 83(1), pages 1-16, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
    • L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices
    • O38 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecorec:v:81:y:2005:i:252:p:51-60. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esausea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.