专利联盟成员技术竞合对成员创新绩效的影响

专利联盟存在竞合现象，联盟成员技术竞合究竟是阻碍创新还是激励创新？着眼于专利联盟成员竞合网络，将技术合作划分为探索式合作和利用式合作，将技术竞争划分为学习型竞争和诉讼型竞争，以2006—2019年MPEGLA公司12个专利联盟的76个成员为研究样本，运用负二项回归实证检验专利联盟成员技术竞合对联盟成员创新绩效的影响。研究发现：探索式合作、利用式合作和学习型竞争有利于成员创新绩效提升，而诉讼型竞争不利于成员创新绩效提升；学习型竞争和诉讼型竞争对双元合作的创新激励效应均具有显著负向调节作用。

The Influence Mechanism of Co-opetition between Patent Pool Members on Innovation Performance

Owing to the high complexity and ambiguity of modern scientific and technological innovation, no single enterprise can monopolize all the advanced technologies of the industry. Thus, high-tech enterprises have adopted the co-opetition strategy of joining patent pools than "fighting alone"; they not only share patents in the pools but also gather the information and expertise needed to create new knowledge. Does co-opetition between pool members encourage or hinder technology innovation? It is crucial to explore the impact of patent pools on enterprise innovation performance. The purpose of this study is to test how co-opetition between pool members affects innovation performance.#br#This paper selects 76 members within 12 patent pools managed by MPEG LA, the world's leading one-stop patent licensing provider with a long history and rich experience in patent pool management. The members of patent pools are research institutions, universities and firms. The information about these pairs was gathered from MPEG LA website, PatSnap Database and Derwent Innovation Index. The research focuses on co-opetition network of pool members, and divides technical collaboration into exploitative collaboration and exploratory collaboration, and technical competition into learning competition and litigation competition. We propose the hypotheses that exploitative collaboration and exploratory collaboration are helpful for innovation performance of pool members; learning competition is positive for innovation performance of pool members while litigation competition plays a negative role; learning competition will weaken innovation motivation effect of exploitative and exploratory collaboration. We verify the above hypotheses by using negative binomial regression to analyze longitudinal data from 76 members within 12 patent pools managed by MPEG LA from 2006 to 2019.#br#The empirical results show that exploratory collaborations, exploitative collaboration and learning competition between pool members have significant positive correlations with innovation performance, while litigation between pool members decreases the innovation performance of the focal member. Learning competition and litigation weaken the positive association of ambidextrous collaboration and innovation performance.#br#This paper integrates strategic management theory and co-opetition theory, and makes the following contributions to the core areas of strategic alliance. First, previous studies lack a realistic understanding of the innovation performance of patent pool, and pay less attention to the technology co-opetition network of multiple pool members. This study focuses on the intensive co-opetition relationship between pool members. We find that technology co-opetition within patent pool has a significant impact on innovation performance of pool member, which expands the empirical research on innovation effect of patent pool. Second, previous literatures mainly studied from the perspective of patent pool formation or cooperation, with little attention on co-opetition. They only considered some characteristics of patent pool, which did not form a comprehensive understanding of innovation effect. Based on the reality of infra-alliance cooperation and competition outside the alliance, this paper introduces the strategic management analysis perspectives of co-opetition, inter-organization practices, alliance learning and relationship capital.#br#This study has several practical implications for the intellectual property management of high-tech enterprises. First, enterprises should actively join patent pools, particularly the acclaimed ones, and utilize the heterogeneous resources to promote enterprise innovation. Leading enterprises in the industry can use China's broad market prospects to organize global outstanding enterprises to establish patent pools and create an innovation ecosystem. In addition, enterprises should actively create conditions to collaborate with alliance members in R&D and promote open innovation. Second, enterprises should augment learning and absorbing of the technical knowledge of allied partners, particularly tacit knowledge, but should control the intensity of alliance learning so as not to cause dissatisfaction of partners. Meanwhile, they should reinforce the protection of core technology to prevent leakage. In addition, they should prevent opportunistic motives and behaviors of allied partners by signing agreements or improving mechanisms, control differences through dialogue, negotiation or dispute settlement, to evade conflicts, especially patent litigation. Third, enterprises should actively strengthen technical exchanges with leading enterprises in the pool, cultivate relationship capital, and promote technology spillover and transfer. Furthermore, enterprises should collaborate with technology complementary partners. In such collaboration, allied partners contribute to their respective fields and attain mutual benefit.#br#