Patenting motives, technology strategies, and open innovation

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to empirically investigate firms' motives to patent in general, and more specifically how some of these motives depend upon firms' technology strategies and especially their level of open innovation. Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on a questionnaire survey sent to CTOs (or equivalent) of the largest R&D spenders among Swedish large firms (e.g., ABB, AstraZeneca, Ericsson, and Volvo) and among Swedish small and mediumsized enterprises. Principal component analysis and multiple linear regressions were used to check the impact from open innovation upon the importance of 21 different motives to patent, with a specific focus on protection and bargaining related motives. FindingsThe most important motive to patent is to protect product technologies, but protecting freedom to operate is almost as important, followed by a number of other motives. Increasing importance of open innovation in firms is related to stronger bargaining motives to patent, and even stronger protection motives. In fact, when comparing with closed innovation the results show that open innovation is more strongly positively related with all different motives to patent except for one (to attract customers). This indicates that firms find it more important to patent when engaged in open innovation than when engaged in closed innovation. Originality/valueThe paper reports results from the first study that links patenting motives to technology strategies. It contributes to an emerging stream of empirical studies investigating the role of patents in external technology strategies and open innovation, showing that the motives to patent are strengthened within open innovation settings.

A Note on Patents and Leniency

“…Non-standard functions of patents, in general, hardly facilitate productive entrepreneurship, and often only serve rent-seeking. On the basis of an extensive literature review [cf., e.g., Langinier, 2005;Penin, 2005;Blind et al, 2006;2009;Chien, 2008;Noel, Schankerman, 2013;Grossmann et al, 2016;Förster, 2017;Holgersson, Granstrand, 2017], the following non-standard functions of patents can be distinguished: to block rivals, to use patents to increase someone's bargaining power in negotiations with potential business partners, to exploit a competitive advantage over rivals, to protect an enterprise's share in the domestic or international market, to increase the operating costs of the enterprise's rivals, to raise barriers to market entry, to mislead the enterprise's rivals in the patent race, and to force other enterprises to bear the expenses of a legal dispute over patent violation (patent predation strategy).…”

Evolution of Enterprise Competitiveness in Multiplex Networks of Standards: A Case Study of the Communication Industry in China

“…Choe et al [7], based on data of patent citation, studied the flow of knowledge among organizations and the structural characteristics of the network. Although patents are closely linked to corporate innovation, it is noteworthy that not all technologies can be patented, given factors such as the degree of their innovation and strategic decisions of the enterprise [8,9,12,28,29].…”

Development of the Organizational Resources towards Innovation Strategy and Innovation Value: Empirical Study

“…In regard to product innovation value, Peter (2000) mentioned that, with the accumulation of organizational resources through R&D capability, an enterprise could satisfy product life cycle and market demands through new product performance, increase in product attribute, and new product R&D. Holgersson & Granstrand (2017) stated that an enterprise, by cultivating the capability of marketing service through organizational resources, could integrate tangible and intangible marketing service and channel systems and eff ectively promote new products to target customers. Yoon et al (2015) indicated that an enterprise, by developing the mass production capability through organizational resources, could reduce production costs, enhance operation process effi ciency, and promote product supply capability to product new products with innovation value.…”