Abstract
Consider that a firm in charge of a business platform is a firm in charge of a microeconomy. To achieve the highest growth rate, how open should that economy be? To encourage third-party developers, how long should their intellectual property interests last? We develop a sequential innovation model that addresses the tradeoffs inherent in these two decisions: (i) Closing the platform increases the sponsor's ability to charge for access, while opening the platform increases developer ability to build upon it. (ii) The longer third-party developers retain rights to their innovations, the higher the royalties they and the sponsor earn, but the sooner those developers rights expire, the sooner their innovations become a public good upon which other developers can build. Our model allows us to characterize the optimal levels of openness and of IP duration in a platform ecosystem. We use standard tools of Cobb-Douglas production and two-sided networks to derive our results. These findings can inform innovation strategy, choice of organizational form, and regulation policy.
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