IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jemstr/v16y2007i2p407-436.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal Licensing Contracts and the Value of a Patent

Author

Listed:
  • Can Erutku
  • Yves Richelle

Abstract

We extend Kamien and Tauman's (1986) analysis of the value of a patent. We find that an inventor can always design a fixed fee plus royalty contract such that his revenue is equal to the profit a monopoly endowed with the innovation could make on the market. This implies that the social value of a patent can be strictly negative whenever the patented innovation is of bad quality. We also explain why a principal can have an interest in using performance‐based contracts although the principal and the agents are risk‐neutral, information is symmetric, and agents' actions are verifiable.

Suggested Citation

  • Can Erutku & Yves Richelle, 2007. "Optimal Licensing Contracts and the Value of a Patent," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(2), pages 407-436, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jemstr:v:16:y:2007:i:2:p:407-436
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-9134.2007.00144.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-9134.2007.00144.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1530-9134.2007.00144.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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Morton I. Kamien & Yair Tauman, 1986. "Fees Versus Royalties and the Private Value of a Patent," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(3), pages 471-491.
    2. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, December.
    3. B. Douglas Bernheim & Michael D. Whinston, 1985. "Common Marketing Agency as a Device for Facilitating Collusion," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(2), pages 269-281, Summer.
    4. 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.
    5. Bengt Holmstrom, 1982. "Moral Hazard in Teams," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 324-340, Autumn.
    6. Wang, X. Henry, 1998. "Fee versus royalty licensing in a Cournot duopoly model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 55-62, July.
    7. 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.
    8. ERUTKU, C. & RICHELLE, Yves, 2000. "Optimal Licensing Contracts and the Value of a Patent," Cahiers de recherche 2000-07, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
    9. Bousquet, Alain & Cremer, Helmuth & Ivaldi, Marc & Wolkowicz, Michel, 1998. "Risk sharing in licensing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 535-554, September.
    10. Kamien, Morton I. & Tauman, Yair & Zang, Israel, 1988. "Optimal license fees for a new product," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 77-106, August.
    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. Stamatopoulos, Giorgos & Tauman, Yair, 2008. "Licensing of a quality-improving innovation," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 410-438, November.
    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. Sougata Poddar & Uday Bhanu Sinha, 2010. "Patent Licensing from a High‐Cost Firm to a Low‐Cost Firm," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 86(274), pages 384-395, September.
    4. Lemarié, S., 2005. "Vertical integration and the licensing of innovation with a fixed fee or a royalty," Working Papers 200517, Grenoble Applied Economics Laboratory (GAEL).
    5. Stefano Colombo & Luigi Filippini, 2015. "Patent Licensing with Bertrand Competitors," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 83(1), pages 1-16, January.
    6. Rabah Amir & David Encaoua & Yassine Lefouili, 2011. "Per-Unit Royalty vs Fixed Fee: The Case of Weak Patents," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00595493, HAL.
    7. Schmitz, Patrick W., 2002. "On Monopolistic Licensing Strategies under Asymmetric Information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 177-189, September.
    8. 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.
    9. John S. Heywood & Lu Xu & Guangliang Ye, 2019. "How does a public innovator license a foreign rival?," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(1), pages 78-95, March.
    10. 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.
    11. Manel Antelo, 2004. "Simultaneous signaling and output royalties in licensing contracts," Economic Working Papers at Centro de Estudios Andaluces E2004/53, Centro de Estudios Andaluces.
    12. Miao, Chun-Hui, 2016. "Licensing a technology standard," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 33-61.
    13. Sinha, Uday Bhanu, 2016. "Optimal value of a patent in an asymmetric Cournot duopoly market," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 93-105.
    14. Sen, Debapriya, 2005. "On the coexistence of different licensing schemes," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 393-413.
    15. Ma, Siyu & Sen, Debapriya & Tauman, Yair, 2022. "Optimal patent licensing: from three to two part tariffs," MPRA Paper 111624, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Kabiraj, Abhishek & Kabiraj, Tarun, 2017. "Tariff induced licensing contracts, consumers’ surplus and welfare," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 439-447.
    17. Fauli-Oller, Ramon & Sandonis, Joel, 2002. "Welfare reducing licensing," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 192-205, November.
    18. Sen, Debapriya, 2005. "Fee versus royalty reconsidered," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 141-147, October.
    19. Stefano Colombo, 2014. "Fee versus royalty licensing in spatial Cournot competition," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 52(3), pages 859-879, May.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    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:jemstr:v:16:y:2007:i:2:p:407-436. 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: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/research/journals/JEMS/ .

    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.