Licensing in the Presence of Competing Technologies

Abstract

In technology-based industries, many incumbent firms license their technology to other firms that will potentially compete with them. Such a strategy is difficult to explain within traditional models of licensing. This paper extends the literature on licensing by relaxing the widespread assumption of a unique technology holder. We develop a model with many technological trajectories for the production of a differentiated good. We find that competition in the market for technology induces licensing of innovations, and that the number of licenses can be inefficiently large. A strong testable implication of our theory is that the number of licenses per patent holder decreases with the degree of product differentiation.

JEL Classification: D45, L1, O34