Collaboration and Intellectual Property

Abstract

The number of options owners of intellectual property confront in how best to exploit the inherent value of an innovation has expanded. New strategies for exploitation have developed in response to the greater fragmentation and overlap of the property rights needed to successfully commercialize new innovations. Although acting independently (go it alone) remains an option and can be enhanced with stealth, collaboration strategies are becoming the norm. The success of a selected collaborative strategy depends largely on a firm achieving or gaining the necessary freedoms to exploit its IP. This chapter reviews the different strategic options and develops a decision framework that can be used to help determine the conditions under which different collaborative strategies are optimal in dealing with fragmented property rights. It concludes by discussing the implications for management practice and research.