The Choice between Formal and Informal Intellectual Property: A Review

Hall, Bronwyn H.; Helmers, Christian; Rogers, Mark; Sena, Vania

doi:10.1257/jel.52.2.375

Cited by 415 publications

(313 citation statements)

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“…In other work, we have provided an extended survey of the economic literature on appropriability (Hall et al 2014) and we briefly summarise what is known about appropriability and performance here. The first and most important fact to note is that in spite of the literature's emphasis on patents or more generally on formal mechanisms of IP protection, firms generally prefer informal mechanisms, although they use both.…”

Section: Appropriability Mechanisms and Firm-level Performance: A Brimentioning

confidence: 99%

Appropriability mechanisms, innovation, and productivity: evidence from the UK

Hall

Sena

2016

Economics of Innovation and New Technology

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We use an extended version of the well-established Crepon, Duguet, and Mairesse model [1998. "Research, Innovation and Productivity: An Econometric Analysis at the Firm Level." Economics of Innovation and New Technology 7 (2): 115-158] to model the relationship between appropriability mechanisms, innovation, and firm-level productivity. We enrich this model in three ways: (1) We compare estimates obtained using a broader definition of innovation spending to those that use R&D spending. (2) We assume that a firm simultaneously innovates and chooses among different appropriability methods to protect the innovation. (3) We estimate the impact of innovation output on firm productivity conditional on the choice of appropriability mechanism. We find that firms that innovate and rate formal methods for the protection of intellectual property highly are more productive than other firms, but that the same does not hold in the case of informal methods of protection, except possibly for large firms as opposed to SMEs. We also find that this result is strongest for firms in the services, trade, and utility sectors, and negative in the manufacturing sector.ARTICLE HISTORY

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Section: Appropriability Mechanisms and Firm-level Performance: A Brimentioning

confidence: 99%

Appropriability mechanisms, innovation, and productivity: evidence from the UK

Hall

Sena

2016

Economics of Innovation and New Technology

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“…PRO INNO Europe, 2007). Prior studies mainly regard secrecy as an informal IPPM (see, e.g., Hussinger, 2006), while others also consider lead times and product complexity (see, e.g., Hall et al, 2014). However, according to WIPO (2014), a prerequisite for trade secrets is that they be accompanied by confidentiality agreements or similar contracts.…”

Section: The Appropriability-openness Relationshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additionally, previous research on appropriability is rather biased towards patents and secrecy (trade secrets) (see, e.g., Hall et al, 2014;Hussinger, 2006). The appropriability literature still has gaps about the potential complementarity of different types of IPPMs (see, e.g., West, 2006) and the relationship between openness and appropriability (Hagedoorn and Ridder, 2012;Hertzfeld et al, 2006;Laursen and Salter, 2014).…”

Section: The Appropriability-openness Relationshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We include firm size, in terms of number of employees (the natural logarithmic value), following Neuhäusler (2012). We also add industry controls, since previous studies suggest appropriability differs across industry sectors (Hall et al, 2014;Hertzfeld et al, 2006). We divided the studied companies into four industry clusters, following the classification proposed by Eurostat and Statistics Sweden SCB (2014), i.e.…”

Section: Controlsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous research provides no clear-cut answers how to solve this challenge. Additionally, the literature on appropriability has been rather biased, focusing extensively on patents and secrecy, while ignoring other types of intellectual property protection (Amara et al, 2008;Hall et al, 2014). Thus, further investigation is needed on how openness relates to the choice of different kinds of appropriability mechanisms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Appropriability: a key to opening innovation internationally?

Stefan

Bengtsson

2016

IJTM

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This study focuses on the tense appropriability-openness relationship, defined by some as paradox. Based on an international survey of 415 manufacturing firms, we investigate how the use of different kinds of intellectual property protection mechanisms (IPPMs) affects interfirm R&D collaboration while considering partner location in the analysis as well. Our results show that the use of formal, semi-formal or informal IPPMs has different effects on openness in terms of partner variety and depth of collaboration with academic partners, value chain partners and competitors. Moreover, when considering location we uncover previously hidden appropriability-openness liaisons showing that semi-formal or informal IPPMs are mainly valid in relation to national partners, whereas formal appropriability explains international collaborations. One implication of the study is that to better understand the appropriability-openness relationship it is imperative to differentiate between national and international settings. We further suggest that the potential paradox delineating this relationship has a geographical dimension.Keywords: appropriability; intellectual property protection mechanisms; IPPMs; inter-firm collaboration; paradox of openness; R&D collaboration; international collaboration; open innovation; partner location; partner breadth; variety; partner depth; survey.Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Stefan, I. and Bengtsson, L. (2016) 'Appropriability: a key to opening innovation internationally? ', Int. J. Technology Management, Vol. 71, Nos. 3/4, Biographical notes: Ioana Stefan is a doctoral student at the University of Gävle and KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Her primary research focus is the role of intellectual property protection mechanisms in open innovation collaborations, including the investigation of appropriability-openness tensions. Aside from her doctoral studies, she is engaged in further research projects where she contributes by e.g., performing patent analyses or investigating technology trends.Lars Bengtsson is a Professor in Innovation Management at the University of Gävle, Sweden and a Docent at The KTH Royal Institute of Technology. He has published articles and books on the subjects of innovation management, knowledge integration, manufacturing strategies and outsourcing. He currently leads research focusing on open innovation, supply chain management, human lean and rapid innovators in emerging economies.

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The Choice between Formal and Informal Intellectual Property: A Review

Cited by 415 publications

References 90 publications

Appropriability mechanisms, innovation, and productivity: evidence from the UK

Appropriability mechanisms, innovation, and productivity: evidence from the UK

Appropriability: a key to opening innovation internationally?

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