Seminar by Aldo Geuna, University of Turin and SPRU

The nature of collaborative patenting activities

Joint with Roberto Fontana, University of Pavia and CESPRI - Bocconi University

Abstract:
The paper investigates why different governance structures are used in a sample of successful collaborative patenting activities in Europe. First we show that collaborative innovative activities are present in the patenting process much more that was know before on the basis of co-assignment data. Overall collaborative patenting activity can be estimated to be present in more than a quarter of all patents, this is about eight times more than what one can expect from co-assignment data (used till now to assess cooperation in patenting). We then examine what is the impact of organizational, project and individual factors on the decision to chose which of the three possible modes of governance: co-assignment, co-invention, collaborative agreement.
We find that higher project complexity and technological scope are associated to tighter modes of governance. We also find a weak negative relationship between licensing and co-ownership, this result provide some support to the view that some icensing can be the result of ex-ante legal agreements more than a market for technology. Finally, inventor specific characteristics matter too. In particular, experience increases the probability of choosing less hierarchical governance modes while better education is associated to tighter modes.