Competition, Licensing, and Innovation Strategy

Abstract

We consider an upstream innovator and two downstream competitors; and examine the impact of product market competition on the innovator's R&D strategy, when she can license her innovations to either one downstream competitor (targeted licensing) or both (market-wide licensing). We show that downstream competition unambiguously increases the appeal of targeted licensing over market-wide licensing. Moreover, competition increases the innovator's incentives to innovate under targeted licensing, but decreases these incentives under market-wide licensing. Thus, a threshold level of competition may exist such that above (below) that threshold, targeted (market-wide) licensing is optimal and innovation is increasing (decreasing) in competition.