IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-09-00136.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Insider patent holder licensing in an oligopoly market with different cost structures: Fixed-fee, royalty, and auction

Author

Listed:
  • Ming-Chung Chang

    (Department of Risk Management, Kainan University, Taiwan)

Abstract

The issue of the optimal licensing contract in firms having different cost structures is studied when the innovator is a producing patent holder who has three alternative licensing strategies, namely, the fixed-fee, royalty rate, and auction strategies. We conclude that the auction licensing strategy is not the best strategy when the innovator is a producing patent holder. This finding differs from that of Kabiraj (2004) where the auction licensing method is the optimal licensing strategy when the innovator is a non-producing patent holder. However, when we only compare two of the licensing methods, namely, the fixed-fee licensing method and the royalty licensing method, we conclude that if the inside innovator licenses to only some of the firms, then the royalty licensing method will be the best strategy. This result is different from that of Fosfuri and Roca (2004), who concluded that if only some of the licensees obtain a licensing contract, then the fixed-fee licensing method will be the best choice for a producing patent holder.

Suggested Citation

  • Ming-Chung Chang, 2010. "Insider patent holder licensing in an oligopoly market with different cost structures: Fixed-fee, royalty, and auction," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 30(1), pages 20-31.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-09-00136
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2010/Volume30/EB-10-V30-I1-P3.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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. Wang, X. Henry, 1998. "Fee versus royalty licensing in a Cournot duopoly model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 55-62, July.
    3. Tarun Kabiraj, 2004. "Patent Licensing in a Leadership Structure," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 72(2), pages 188-205, March.
    4. Rockett, Katharine, 1990. "The quality of licensed technology," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 559-574, December.
    5. Andrea Fosfuri & Esther Roca, 2004. "Optimal Licensing Strategy: Royalty or Fixed Fee?," International Journal of Business and Economics, School of Management Development, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan, vol. 3(1), pages 13-19, April.
    6. 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.
    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. Arijit Mukherjee, 2010. "Technology licensing under convex costs," Discussion Papers 10/05, University of Nottingham, School of Economics.
    2. 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.
    3. Bagchi, Aniruddha & Mukherjee, Arijit, 2014. "Technology licensing in a differentiated oligopoly," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 455-465.
    4. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:30:y:2010:i:1:p:20-31 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Debapriya Sen & Giorgos Stamatopoulos, 2009. "Technology Transfer Under Returns To Scale," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 77(3), pages 337-365, June.
    8. Rabah Amir & David Encaoua & Yassine Lefouili, 2011. "Per-Unit Royalty vs Fixed Fee: The Case of Weak Patents," Working Papers halshs-00595493, HAL.
    9. Sinha, Uday Bhanu, 2016. "Optimal value of a patent in an asymmetric Cournot duopoly market," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 93-105.
    10. 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.
    11. Sen, Debapriya, 2005. "Fee versus royalty reconsidered," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 141-147, October.
    12. Yair Tauman & Debrapiya Sen, 2012. "Patents and Licenses," Department of Economics Working Papers 12-05, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.
    13. Arijit Mukherjee & Yingyi Tsai, 2013. "Technology licensing under optimal tax policy," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 108(3), pages 231-247, April.
    14. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:12:y:2008:i:5:p:1-7 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Sen, Debapriya, 2005. "On the coexistence of different licensing schemes," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 393-413.
    16. Ismail Saglam, 2023. "Licensing cost‐reducing innovations under supply function competition," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(1), pages 180-201, January.
    17. Kabiraj, Abhishek & Kabiraj, Tarun, 2017. "Tariff induced licensing contracts, consumers’ surplus and welfare," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 439-447.
    18. Nisvan Erkal, 2005. "Optimal Licensing Policy in Differentiated Industries," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 81(252), pages 51-60, March.
    19. Saracho, Ana I., 2011. "Licensing information goods," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 187-199, March.
    20. Yan, Qingyou & Yang, Le, 2018. "Optimal licensing schemes for a mixed ownership firm when facing uncertain R&D outcomes and technology spillover," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 550-572.
    21. Siyu Ma & Debapriya Sen & Yair Tauman, 2024. "Optimal patent licensing: from three to two part tariffs," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 78(4), pages 1233-1273, December.
    22. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Licensing strategy; Cost structure; Auction;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights
    • C5 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling

    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:ebl:ecbull:eb-09-00136. 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.