License and Entry Strategies for an Outside Innovator Under Duopoly with Combination of Royalty and Fixed Fee

Abstract

We consider a choice of options for an innovating firm to enter the market with or without licensing its new cost-reducing technology to an incumbent firm using a combination of royalty and fixed license fee, or to license its technology without entry. When the innovating firm licenses its technology to the incumbent firm without entry, the optimal royalty rate for the innovating firm is zero. When the innovating firm enters the market with a license, its optimal royalty rate is positive. In that case if cost functions are concave, the optimal royalty rate is one such that the incumbent firm drops out of the market with negative fixed fee, and license without entry strategy and entry with license strategy are optimal; if cost functions are strictly convex, there is an internal solution of positive optimal royalty rate with positive or negative fixed fee and entry with license strategy is optimal.