Types of IP Pledges

Abstract

Firms dealing with Intellectual Property (IP) have always challenged theories that aim to explain why and how companies use Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs). Existing licensing-theories cannot explain why firms like Tesla Motors give away their patents for free (i. e. without demanding royalty payments). Especially the rise of open innovation and open-source software caused some rethinking of long-established aspects within an organization, including their attitude towards IP strategies. The announcement made by Tesla in 2014 triggered an ongoing debate inside and outside the academic world and has often been coined an Open IP Strategy or IP Pledge . While Tesla’s IP Pledge might be the most popular one, it is not the only one. A less known example for freely available IPRs is the bundle of patents and trademarks relating to the QR-Code technology. Even though such IP Pledges become increasingly frequent, they are not new. The rise of IP Pledges, along with the increase of other IP licensing approaches such as patent pools, requires some rethinking of current IP licensing theories and definitions. This demand for more research has been recognized by many scholars, some of which have produced seminal works in the area of IP Pledges. The rapid and simultaneous research, however, is followed by ambiguity: Academic scholars and industry professionals utilize terms, such as IP Pledges and Open IP, inconsistently. For some, only IPRs that are free of charge and available to the unrestricted public constitute an IP Pledge. Others include the access to IPRs on reasonable licensing-fees available only to a certain community in their definition. This inconsistency hinders the comparison of academic work and impedes communication between IP professionals.