Technology transfer in a linear city with symmetric locations

This paper compares patent licensing regimes in a Hotelling model where firms are located symmetrically and not necessary at the end points of the city. I suppose that one of the firms owns a process innovation reducing the marginal unit cost. This patent holding firm will decide to sell a license or not to the non innovative firm and will choose, when licensing, between a fixed fee or a royalty. The key difference between this paper and other papers is that here I suppose that firms are not static and can move along the linear city symmetrically. I find that when there is no licensing, Nash equilibrium exists only when innovation is non drastic. I also find that royalties licensing is better than fixed fee licensing when innovation is small. When the innovation is intermediate I find that fixed fee is better than a royalty. The paper shows that a fixed fee is not better than a non licensing regime independently of the innovation size and the optimal licensing regime is royalties when innovation is small. Finally, I show that a patent holding firm should not license its innovation when it is intermediate or drastic