New Evidence on Determinants of Intellectual Property Litigation: A Market-Based Approach

Abstract

We contribute to the economic literature on patent litigation by taking a new perspective. In the past, scholars mostly focused on specific litigation cases at the patent level and related technological characteristics to the event of litigation. However, observing intellectual property (IP) disputes suggests that not only technological characteristics may trigger litigation suits, but also the market positions of firms, and that firms dispute not only over single patents but often over portfolios. This paper examines the occurrence of IP litigation cases in Belgian firms using the 2013 Community Innovation Survey with supplemental information on IP litigation and patent portfolios. The rich survey information regarding firms’ general innovation strategies enables us to introduce market-related variables such as sales with new products, as well as sales based mainly on imitation and incremental innovation. Our results indicate that when controlling for firms’ IP portfolios, the composition of sales in terms of innovation and imitation has additional explanatory power regarding litigation propensities. Firms with high sales from innovations are more likely to become plaintiffs in court. Contrastingly, firms with high sales from incremental innovation and imitation are more likely to become defendants in court and, moreover, are more likely to negotiate settlements outside of court.     

Innovation and imitation effects in the mobile telecommunication service market

This study investigates adoption patterns of the first mover and the followers in the Information and Communication Technology industry. The continuous behavior of adopters over time is difficult to analyze and most previous studies were cross-sectional rather than longitudinal. In order to overcome these limitations, a mathematical diffusion model with verified official time-series data is used to analytically investigate the impact of both innovation and imitation effects on the mobile phone adoption in South Korea. The results showed that the imitation effect of the first mover was larger than those of the followers in the mature mobile telecommunication services market in South Korea. The innovation effect of the follower was larger than that of the first mover, and the innovation effect was larger than the imitation effect in the market.     

The impact of cultural differences on technology adoption

This study examines the impact of Type I and Type II cultural differences on mobile phone adoption patterns. We use Hofstede's cultural dimensions to examine cultural differences of two countries (Type I: the U.S.; Type II: S. Korea) and employ the Bass diffusion model to delineate innovation and imitation effects on mobile phone adoption. The results show that in Type I culture innovation factor has a significantly higher level of effect on adoption than it does in Type II culture; and in Type II culture imitation factor has a higher degree of effect on adoption than it does in Type I culture. These findings imply that in individualistic cultures, people tend to seek information on their own from direct and formal sources, whereas in collectivistic cultures, people rely more on subjective evaluation of an innovation, conveyed from other-like-minded individuals who already have adopted the innovation.     

Determinants of the Willingness to Use Mobile Location-Based Services

This article develops 11 hypotheses on impacts of six customer characteristics on an individual’s willingness to use mobile location based services (LBS). Hypotheses are tested in a sample of 217 mobile communications customers in Germany who participated in a standardized online-survey. PLS analysis suggests that reported frequency of “on the move” information needs, perceived assessment of LBS in a customer’s social environment and extent of past use of other mobile data services have statistically as well as practically significant effects on adoption intentions for pull LBS. Data privacy risks and cost/bill size concerns are only weakly or not related to such intentions.     

iEthics

Nike. McDonald’s Apple. These companies and many others invest millions of dollars each year protecting that one thing that distinguishes them in the marketplace – a trademark. A company’s trademark is the symbol that allows consumers to know that they are dealing with a particular company. This article addresses the extent to which some companies will go to obtain and protect a trademark. Specifically, it will address the fight between Cisco and Apple over the iPhone trademark, as both companies took questionable steps in the United States and abroad to obtain rights to the iPhone mark. In addition, the basics of trademark law and ethical theories relevant to trademark law will be addressed.     

中国制造业企业创新活动的关键影响因素研究——基于江苏省制造业企业问卷的分析

Based on empirical evidence from enterprises in Jiangsu Province, this paper studies key influencing factors of their innovation activities at the micro level. Results show that a “threshold effect” and a reversed U-shaped relationship exist between an enterprise’s size and intensity of its innovation input when factors such as brand, entrepreneur background, HR, industrial and regional differences are controlled. Agglomeration effect is found influencing an enterprise’s innovation activities negatively rather than positively. A non-linear relationship is also found between an enterprise’s innovation activities and export ratio, showing a “capture effect”. A behavior mode of the effects of these influencing factors on innovation activities of China’s manufacturing enterprises is established and implications are provided. __________ Translated and revised from Guanli shijie 管理世界 (Management World), 2007, (6): 64–74     

A Process Perspective on Organizational Innovation Adoption – A Qualitative Case Study

The purpose of this study is to scrutinize organizational innovation adoption from a process perspective. This qualitative single-case study is based on ten thematic interviews within the food-processing industry. The results accentuate the embedded nature of organizational innovation adoption in that the process studied was entangled with the company’s previous and current business processes and with its future visions.     

The embedded sales force: Connecting buying and selling organizations

Business-to-business firms are increasingly focusing on building long-term partnering relationships with key customers. Salespeople are often responsible for managing these relationships. To be effective as relationship managers, salespeople need to be embedded in both their firm’s and customers’ organizations. They need to have extensive knowledge of their customers’ business and also know and be able to leverage their firm’s resources to develop offerings tailored to their customers’ needs. Their companies and sales managers need to use different approaches to manage and support salespeople in this new role. In this paper, we examine some issues affecting the interfaces between elements of the embedded sales force and suggest some directions for future research and methods for examining these issues.     

Historische und aktuelle Perspektiven im Dienstleistungshandel

Trade in services has expanded rapidly over the past several decades and now represents around a quarter of world trade, or approximately USD 5 trillion. This article gives an overview of historical and recent developments in services trade. It includes a discussion of the different definitions of services trade and the problems of accurate statistical measurement. It also presents selected recent research findings on the characteristics of services traders, firm level trade patterns, measurement of trade barriers, and the effects of trade liberalisation and regional integration on services trade, with a particular focus on the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union (Brexit).     

Advertising budgets in competitive environments

Firms can approach advertising competition either by setting advertising budgets (as in the percentage of sales method) or target sales levels (as in the objective and task approach). We study firms’ incentives to adopt one or the other posture using a two-stage model of duopolistic competition. In the first stage, each firm chooses to commit either to an advertising budget, letting its sales follow from the market response function, or to a desired sales level, promising to adjust its advertising spending accordingly. In the second stage, firms choose the actual levels of their advertising budget or sales target. When prices are exogenous, we show that, due to strategic effects, if a firm benefits from its rival’s advertising (as when advertising increases awareness of the product category) then setting an advertising budget dominates setting a sales target. On the other hand, if a firm is harmed by its rival’s advertising (as when advertising increases the firm’s share of a fixed market), then committing to a sales level dominates. We extend these results in several directions and show that when firms engage in price competition as well as advertising the nature of advertising and product-market competition interact to determine whether setting an advertising budget or sales target dominates.

Understanding the Factors That Affect the Adoption of Innovative High-Technology Brands: The Case of Apple iPhone in Malaysia

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to examine how innovation attributes, social influence, and perceived risk can affect technology brand adoption. The impact of innovation attributes, social influence, and perceived risk on iPhone adoption has been tested through series of tests (i.e., reliability, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, correlations, multiple regression analysis, and moderation effect of gender). The sample consists of 134 Malaysian students. Results revealed the importance of relative advantage, trialability, and social influence as key constructs in adoption intention. The study also showed that gender of the consumer has no moderating effect on the adoption intention. Practical guidelines are provided to marketing managers on how to use those factors to increase the adoption of new brands among customers.     

Ethical Ideologies and Older Consumer Perceptions of Unethical Sales Tactics

Demographic differences among consumer groups have become increasingly important to the development of marketing strategies. Marketers depend heavily on the sales force to implement strategies at the consumer level and, not surprisingly, different groups may view the salesperson’s role differently. Unfortunately, unethical sales practices targeted at various consumer groups, and especially at seniors, have been utilized as well. The purpose of this study is to provide initial empirical evidence of the ethical ideological make-up of four age segments outlined by Strauss and Howe (1991, Generations: The History of America’s Future 1584–2069, Morrow, New York) and to examine the propensity for these groups (seniors, in particular) to respond differentially to potentially unethical sales tactics. Data were collected from 179 respondents representing the four generational age groups. MANOVA revealed that the seniors in this study were distinct with respect to ethical ideology and less accepting of unethical sales tactics. Managerial implications are discussed for sales organizations to maximize their effectiveness across consumer groups. Rosemary P. Ramsey (Ph.D., University of Cineinnati) is Professor of Marketing in the Raj Soin College of Business at Wright State University, Dayton, OH, USA. Rosemary spent several years as a marketing and sales practitioner in the private sector, primarily for NCR Corporation. She is interested in relationship development as it pertains to buyer-seller interactions, salespersons with their sales managers, and team dynamics. She has been on the faculty at University of Kentucky and University of South Florida. She was in administration at Eastern Kentucky University, Cleveland State University, and Wright State University. She is published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, among others. She was recently honored by Who’s Who among America’s Teachers and Who’s Who in Executives and Professionals. Greg W. Marshall (Ph.D., Oklahoma State University) is Professor of Marketing and Strategy in the Roy E. Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College, Winter Park, FL, USA, Greg’s research centers on the areas of sales force selection, performance, and evaluation; adoption and successful use of technology by salespeople; sales force diversity; decision making by marketing managers; and intraorganizational relationships. He is Editor of the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice. His industry experience includes thirteen years in selling and sales management, product management, and retailing with companies such as Warner Lambert, Mennen, and Target Corporation. He is a frequent consultant and trainer in the area of strategic marketing. Greg serves on the editorial review boards of the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Research, and Industrial Marketing Management.He is co-author of the books, Sales Force Management 9e and Relationship Selling and Sales Management 2e, both published by McCraw-Hill, and Marketing: Real People, Real Choices 5e, published by Prentice Hall. Mark W Johnston (Ph.D., Texas A&M University) is the Alan and Sandra Gerry Professor of Marketing and Ethics at the Roy E. Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College, Winter Park, FL, USA. Mark has conducted a number of seminars around the world on a variety of topics including ethical issues in marketing, sales force motivation, managing turnover in the organization, sales training issues, and improving overall sales performance. He has served as a marketing consultant to a number of organizations around the country. A partial list of his research includes publications in theJournal of Marketing Research, Jotunal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Business Research, and Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management. He is co-author of the books Sales Force Marnagement 9e and Relationship Selling and Sales Management 2e, both published by McGraw-Hill. Dawn R, Deeter-Schmelz (Ph.D., University of South Florida) is Chair and O’Bleness Professor of Marketing at Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA. Her research interests include customer service teams, sales management and buyer-seller relationship issues, business-to-business e-commerce, and scale development. She has published in Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, Journal of Marketing Education, and Journal of Business Logistics, among others. In a marketplace where the consumer is King ... understanding the fundamental needs, values, icons and historical experiences of the various generations is more critical than ever. Generational mindsets and feelings are major factors in determining ...an effective marketing strategy. —Fishman (2004), p. 4     

Impact of Technology-Based Self-Service on Employees, Customers, and Sales in the Korean Services Market

For service providers, efficient production and delivery is becoming increasingly important. If customers can play the role of partial employees when participating in the service production and delivery, service providers can reduce the workload and achieve higher productivity. This study’s purpose is to investigate the impact of technology-based self-service (TBSS) which is designed for improvement of operational efficiency of service organizations on employees, customers, and sales, especially focused on South Korea’s service market. In-depth interviews with managers of large service providers and a questionnaire survey of employees were used as the research method. Our findings indicate that technology-based self-service positively influences employee satisfaction, but it provides disadvantages in sales, and in customer satisfaction when the services fail. Moreover, some interesting results were identified. We present the details of the statistical results and the implications found from the study.     

How incumbent firms foster consumer expectations, delay launch but still win the markets for next generation products

Consumers learn quality of many durable products through word-of-mouth information while firms launch new and improved products frequently in these markets. This paper examines firm incentives to invest in R&D to compete for patents in makets where consumers rely on word-of-mouth information and have expectations about the new products before launch. When its loss due to a possible entry is above a threshold, an incumbent has more incentives than a potential entrant to invest in R&D for patents. Moreover, if the current product is more profitable, its true quality is above consumer priors and the quality of the new product is below a threshold, it is optimal for the incumbent to launch the new product after a time lag. The later the optimal time of launch, the greater is the incumbent’s potential loss if entry occurs and greater its incentives is to invest in R&D versus that of the entrants. While potential entrants are generally thought to have more incentives to invest in a drastic innovation which results in a race to launch the new products, we show that the more drastic the innovation, the later the optimal time of launch and greater are the incumbent’s incentives to invest in R&D when the value added of the new product can be conveyed to all the consumers. Only when consumers are uncertain about the value added of the new product, the incumbent’s incentives are lower. We also demonstrate that by promoting consumer expectations about the new product before launch, an incumbent has more time to launch and higher probability of dominating its market.     

Pre-launch Prediction of Market Performance for Short Lifecycle Products Using Online Community Data

Prediction of sales for short life-cycle products can be problematic. Generic predictive models based on past launches may provide only crude historic data which are unsuited for distinctive, innovative products. This paper investigates the role of online communities in providing pre-launch data to predict post-launch sales. We argue that levels of awareness, word-of-mouth, expectations, and adoption intention prevailing within an online community for an upcoming product have an independent direct effect on the product's future sales. Additionally, we test the complementarity effect of these community variables by introducing a higher order construct called Pre-release Community Buzz, to demonstrate the incremental explanatory power of using pre-launch community variables to predict post-launch sales. Data for community variables were collected from a movie-based online community, and analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). We found strong support for both direct and complementarity effects of community variables in predicting a movie's opening week sales. We also found that community variables mediate the effects of generic predictor variables such as MPAA ratings, star cast, production budget and competition on opening week sales. Tests for robustness demonstrated the value of community variables. Models which included community variables had higher predictive power than those without. Implications for theory and practice are presented.     

The adoption of direct banking services

The adoption of new products and services is of increasing importance to many industries. This is especially so for those organisations that are marketing technological innovations. In this paper a model of the perceived innovation attributes and the personal characteristics of adopters and non‐adopters was developed, based on literature and consumer research. These are then tested using a questionnaire concerned with the UK market for direct banking services. The results are presented in detail which indicate that the model presented is an excellent predictor of adoption behaviour. From these results a number of interesting implications have been highlighted for marketing practice.     

Incremental Innovation and Business Performance: Small and Medium-Size Food Enterprises in a Concentrated Industry Environment

Past studies have analyzed issues pertaining to the definition of innovation, methods of measuring innovation and the relationship between organizational characteristics and innovation orientation. Extant studies have adopted a large business or a technologically intense context of study. By studying the adoption of new products, methods, systems, markets, and supply sources in small and medium-size seafood retail enterprises, this study reviews innovation and the adoption of innovation in a broader and novel context. Seafood retailers in this study operate in a concentrated industry environment where two large supermarket chains account for more than 70 percent of national food retail sales. The seafood retailers operate in a highly competitive environment, the industry is maturing, the firms are not very advanced technologically, and the sector has a disproportionately large number of firms owned and operated by persons of non-English speaking backgrounds. The results of the study indicate that incremental innovation offers substantial competitive advantages to small and medium-size firms, that incremental innovations can be adopted and operationalized rapidly by entrepreneurs with different cultural backgrounds and skills, and that small and medium-size firms that focus on sales and marketing innovations are profitable and are able to compete successfully with large businesses.     

Effects of social influence on consumers' voluntary adoption of innovations prompted by others

Research on innovation adoption focuses on voluntary adoption, although non-voluntary or prompted adoption decisions are prevalent in real life, especially for high-tech products and services. This study aims to investigate the effect of social influence on consumers' innovation adoption in the context of prompted adoption. In particular, the present paper models the duration of voluntary adoption as a function of social norms, attractiveness of the prompter, number of prompters, and so on. Prior knowledge is not only a control variable, but also a moderating variable for a few social factors. This paper validates models relying on the illustrative application of a mobile gift service called Gifticon. The results provide much insight for marketing practitioners on how to accelerate consumers' adoption behavior and therefore the diffusion of innovative products.     

The role of social influence on adoption of high tech innovations: The moderating effect of public/private consumption

As technological innovations have become an integral part of the world economy in recent decades, predicting acceptance of those products has become a major goal of many researchers in academia and industry. The main objective of this study is to examine the role of social influence and the moderating effect of a product's public/private status on consumers' intended adoption of high-tech innovations. The results indicate that both social influence and adoption attitude have positive effects on consumer intention to adopt an innovation. Specifically, the effect of social influence on adoption intention is fully mediated by consumer attitude. Further, the relationship between social influence and adoption intention is stronger when an innovation is publicly consumed rather than privately consumed. Implications and future research directions are discussed.     

How Leadership and Commitment Influence Bank Employees’ Adoption of their Bank’s Values

Retail banking is facing many challenges, not least the loss of its customers’ trust and loyalty. The economic crisis is forcing banks to examine their relationships with stakeholders and to offer greater reassurance that their brand promises will be delivered. More than ever, banks need to stand for something positive and valued by stakeholders. One way to achieve this is through paying more attention to brand values. Our article explores how values are adopted by employees within a bank. When employees ‘live’ their brand’s values, their behaviour during customer interactions reflects this, encouraging the strengthening of customer relationships. Specifically, we test the relationship between leadership style, employee commitment, and the adoption of values. Data was collected from a survey of 438 branch employees in a leading Irish retail bank. The study found that a structured and directive leadership style was effective at encouraging the adoption of the bank’s values. Moreover, when employees are committed to the organisation, this has a significant impact on their adoption of values. Thus, this study supports the literature which suggests that leadership and commitment are prerequisites for values adoption.