Drawing on contractual economics and innovation management, licensing-in is hypothesized to accelerate licensees' invention process. Studying a matched dataset of licensees and non-licensees, ...licensees are shown to be faster at inventing, but the effect is negated if the license includes a grant-back clause, shifting incentives from licensee to licensor. Also, the effect is significantly reduced if the licensee is unfamiliar with the licensed technology. The effect of the grant-back clause is offset if the licensee is unfamiliar with the licensed technology, suggesting that the licensee retains the incentives to invent under these circumstances.
Odorant-binding proteins (OBPs), as they occur in insects, form a distinct class of proteins that apparently has no closely related representatives in other animals. However, ticks, mites, spiders ...and millipedes contain genes encoding proteins with sequence similarity to insect OBPs. In this work, we have explored the structure and function of such non-insect OBPs in the mite Varroa destructor, a major pest of honey bee. Varroa OBPs present six cysteines paired into three disulphide bridges, but with positions in the sequence and connections different from those of their insect counterparts. VdesOBP1 structure was determined in two closely related crystal forms and appears to be a monomer. Its structure assembles five α-helices linked by three disulphide bridges, one of them exhibiting a different connection as compared to their insect counterparts. Comparison with classical OBPs reveals that the second of the six α-helices is lacking in VdesOBP1. Ligand-binding experiments revealed molecules able to bind only specific OBPs with a moderate affinity, suggesting that either optimal ligands have still to be identified, or post-translational modifications present in the native proteins may be essential for modulating binding activity, or else these OBPs might represent a failed attempt in evolution and are not used by the mites.
When engaging in licensing, companies may either use standard agreements or may embed the licensing deals into broader partnerships. Whether these alternative schemes are more frequently associated ...with particular types of licensors and licensees and whether they imply different outcomes for the two parties is still underinvestigated in the relevant literature. Inspired by this, our exploratory study, enriched by 341 observations of licensing contracts signed between 1990 and 2010, addresses these research gaps. Aiming at this, this article offers a full-fledged analysis, encompassing an in-depth overview of the overall licensing deals, a detailed description of the licensing parties' profiles, and a t-test comparison of licensing parties' traits both at the time of the licensing deal and after the deal, in the two different regimes. Further, it presents a complementary econometric exercise for assessing the impact of the two alternatives for both the licensor and the licensee. The study shows that, in general, licensors are more inventive and less specialized than licensees, and that licensors and licensees engaging in standard licensing have a higher knowledge overlap than firms engaging in partnership embedded licensing. The difference is also remarkable in terms of the outcomes of the different license agreements measured through patenting activity: the licensor is more likely to guide the invention process in standard licensing contexts, while the licensee is more likely to guide it in the opposite scenario.
This study examines how the success of reward-based crowdfunding (RBCF) is affected by two narrative styles—namely “results in progress” (RIP) and “ongoing journey” (OJ)—and by the entrepreneur’s ...RBCF experience. Our findings reveal that greater success in collecting funds is achieved by RBCF campaigns that are communicated through RIP narrative styles rather than OJ styles. Moreover, we have underscored the positive effect brought about by an entrepreneur’s RBCF experience. In addition, we highlight how these two factors interact with each other in their overall effect on successful fundraising through RBFC, showing that entrepreneurs with extensive experience in RBCF attract more pledges by adopting OJ narratives rather than RIP narratives. The outcomes of this study advance the theoretical understanding of success factors in RBCF and provide RBCF entrepreneurs with suggestions regarding the most appropriate narrative style to adopt, depending on their level of experience.
Technology licensing agreements potentially can create future appropriability problems. Drawing on the appropriability literature, we argue that the inclusion of a grant-back clause in technology ...licensing agreements is an attempt to balance the gains from and protection of the focal firms’ technologies. We hypothesize that the closer the licensed technology is to the licensor’s core patented technologies, the more likely the licensing agreement will include a grant-back clause, while the closer the licensed technology is to the licensee’s core patent portfolio, the less likely the agreement will include a grant-back clause. We hypothesize also that technological uncertainty is a positive moderator in the decision to include a grant-back clause, if the licensed technology is close to either the licensee’s or the licensor’s core technologies. We employ a hierarchical nested decision model to test the hypotheses on a sample of 397 licensed technologies. This method allows us to model the choice to include a grant-back clause as nested in the decision about which technologies to license out. We find broad support for our theoretical arguments.
Coronavirus disease‐19 (COVID‐19) has stimulated urgent innovative responses to tackle the current crisis and unveil new trajectories enabling recovery as early as possible. In the quest for ...solutions to the pandemic, organizations have been forced to join efforts with an unprecedented number of different stakeholders, including competitors, rising new appropriation‐related challenges. To ease these issues and facilitate collaborative efforts, some initiatives have come into being to encourage the release of Intellectual Property (IP) rights to unlock new possibilities from their use and possibly foster the collective innovation process. The Open COVID Pledge (OCP) stands out as the most visible project that has gained momentum at the international level, as it has increasingly involved well‐known top‐patenting companies, willing to publicly commit to making their IP relevant to COVID‐19 freely available. Drawing from all the available information (the World Wide Web, the participating companies' press releases and official websites, and the documents of pledged patents), we propose a research design, applying a semantic method to allow an augmented understanding of the main characteristics of this pledge. Our findings point out that the OCP has got a great media resonance on the overall web, also thanks to the commitment of large top‐patenting pledgors; results also show that while the official communications of the participant companies resemble very much the general OCP Manifesto of providing free access to their patent portfolio, the semantic analysis of the pledged patents unveils details on available technologies that mostly refer to the real‐time search and analysis of information and devices for the detection of the diffusion of the virus. Overall, this analysis contributes to providing contextual information on the available IP, towards the desired direction of putting the pledge to work and have an impact on follow‐on innovation, which represents the underlying rationale of the initiative in the fight against COVID‐19.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the trends and features of one of the most visible intellectual property (IP) management practices, IP licensing, in the context of start-ups, ...accessing external technology at the outset of their lifetime. In particular, it compares start-ups and incumbent firms, in terms of licensing strategy pursued, role of in-licensed technologies relative to the internal innovation process and successively implemented IP management strategies.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed-method study is presented using quantitative data on licensing deals from the US Securities and Exchange Commission and cases on start-up companies involved in inbound technology licensing.
Findings
Evidence indicates start-ups have different IP licensing strategies than incumbents, and their successive IP management strategies are more flexible than for incumbents.
Originality/value
The authors shed light on IP licensing, which is gaining momentum in open innovation (OI) settings, in an understudied segment of SMEs, namely, start-ups. The authors display interesting evidence of the portion of start-ups that license-in from external companies, indicating that this practice is more widespread than literature would suggest; the authors demonstrate that licensing-in is a valuable strategy for start-up companies, possibly providing additional channels for acquiring know-how on the market. The authors therefore contribute to, and advance, entrepreneurship, IP and OI literature.
Building on the theories of knowledge recombination, we argue that the external acquisition of technologies acts as a boundary spanning mechanism that impacts on the recipient firm’ subsequent ...technology development. The effect is moderated by two additional mechanisms, namely the retention of star scientists and the experience in upstream strategic alliances. We tested our hypotheses on a sample of 6208 USPTO patented technologies acquired by 350 biotechnology firms over the period 1980–2012. Findings reveal an inverted U-shaped effect of the pioneering nature of the acquired technology on firm's subsequent developments, in terms of (self) citations of firm's subsequent patents to the acquired one. Moreover, the main relationship is negatively moderated by the retention of star scientists, while the experience in upstream alliances demonstrates to be a positive moderator.
•Externally acquired technologies influence firm's technological development.•The pioneering nature of acquired technologies has an inverted-U effect on firm's development.•This relationship is negatively moderated by the presence of star scientists.•This relationship is positively moderated by the engagement in upstream alliances.
A remarkable growth in the value of trademark licencing has been recently recorded. Our paper contributes to the understanding of this under-explored phenomenon using a dataset newly released by the ...USPTO. Our study analyses the evolution of licencing activities in the U.S. during the 2003-2017 period, the characteristics of these trademarks and agreements, and certain features of the licencing parties involved. We found that licencing activities varied considerably during these years. They were usually signed between two parties only, and, on average, they involved more than one trademark. Excluding under-reporting effect, the analyses reveal that a large portion of heterogeneity in licencing activity is due to the NICE international classes associated with each trademark. Indeed, trademark licencing agreements appear to be unevenly distributed across these classes, suggesting that this activity and the way it is carried out is correlated with the market to which the licenced trademark refers.
This article introduces the distinction between thin and thick contracts to the investigation of licensing‐in as a mechanism for technological learning. Thick contracts include a clause specifying ...that the licensors are obligated to assist the licensees in assimilating and integrating the technology. Drawing on a sample of 133 licensees and an equal number of matched nonlicensees, we present empirical evidence that thick contracts propel the licensees’ likelihood of introducing new inventions. It is also found that thick contracts act as a substitute for licensees’ absorptive capacity. Licensees that are more familiar with the licensed technology are in less need of assistance from the licensors to assimilate and integrate the knowledge. However, this substitution effect is neutralized once the hurdle of invention has been overcome, meaning that the licensees have succeeded to ignite the invention process, suggesting the exploitation of the learning curve, triggered by their mutual understanding.
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