Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/94068 
Year of Publication: 
2006
Series/Report no.: 
SFB/TR 15 Discussion Paper No. 123
Publisher: 
Sonderforschungsbereich/Transregio 15 - Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems (GESY), München
Abstract: 
Where product innovation requires several complementary patents, fragmented property rights can be a factor that limits firms' willingness to invest in the development and commercialization of new products. This paper studies multiple simultaneous R&D contests for complementary patents and how they interact with patent portfolios that firms may have acquired already. We also consider how this interaction and the intensity of the contests depends on the type of patent trade regimes and the product market equilibria that result from these regimes. We solve for the contest equilibria and show that the multiple patent product involves an important hold-up problem that considerably reduces the overall contest effort.
Subjects: 
fragmented property rights
patents
contests
hold-up
R&D
patent pools
licensing
JEL: 
D44
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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