صدور مجوز فناوری در یک انحصار دوگانه فروش عمودی متمایز

In this paper, we develop a vertically differentiated duopoly model where a high-quality producer competes against a low-quality producer, a la Cournot competition. The high-quality firm has both a new technology and an obsolescent technology. After first deciding whether to license, the firm then chooses which of the two technologies to license. We show that, irrespective of the licensing contract, licensing the new technology is always superior to licensing the obsolescent technology. This finding poses a sharp contrast to the conventional wisdom.

Licensing represents an important form of technology transfer between two or more firms. The existing literature focuses on either optimal licensing contracts1 or on welfare implications.2 These papers mainly analyze cost-reducing innovations, and seldom consider vertical product innovations. However, competition between vertically differentiated firms is common in many countries. For example, multinational firms compete with local firms in many developing countries, and products produced by multinational firms are often superior in quality to those produced by local firms. Despite the practical significance in the real world, the literature overlooks the licensing behaviors between vertically differentiated firms. In addition, the previous studies assume away licensing choices between technologies by modeling that the innovating firm has a single innovation.3 Although, this assumption may help to simplify the model analysis, it is important to recognize that a firm that produces a high-quality product may have both a new technology and an obsolescent technology. Therefore, the firm has to make a choice between licensing the obsolescent technology and licensing the new technology. Licensing the obsolescent technology, while keeping the new one for its own use, may allow the patent-holding firm to obtain some licensing revenue, as well as maintain its advantage in competing with its competitors. In contrast, licensing the new technology enables the patent holder to realize higher licensing income, but intensifies market competition. The patent-holding firm has to balance these effects when making its licensing decision. It is widely observed that patent-holding firms are reluctant to transfer their advanced technologies to their competitors, and, instead, they may have incentives to sell their old technologies. For instance, a German firm declined to transfer its magnetic levitation technology when it negotiated with Chinese government over the Maglev train project. It is also reported that multinational firms in China have strong incentives to prevent their new technologies from being transferred to their Chinese rivals. This paper studies a vertically differentiated duopoly where one firm produces a high-quality product and the other produces a low-quality product. The two firms compete in choosing outputs.4 The high-quality firm has both a new innovation and an obsolescent innovation. The purpose of the present work is to investigate the choice between licensing the obsolescent technology and licensing the new technology. In this paper, we concentrate the analysis on Cournot competition rather than on Bertrand competition. This deserves some comment. As we are interested in the licensing choice between the obsolescent technology and the new technology, this is a natural assumption. From a theoretical perspective, two papers, by De Fraja (1996) and Avenel and Caprice (2006), support the assumption of quantity competition by indicating that Bertrand competition eliminates head-to-head competition. Casual observation shows that many firms compete head-on with their rival firms. For example, in China, Gome Corporation and Suning Group sell identical household appliances, in different cities. Another example is China Unicom and China Mobile, which also provide similar services. Therefore, both theoretical analysis and casual evidence suggest that our quantity assumption is very reasonable. In contrast to the conventional wisdom, it is shown that, irrespective of the licensing contract, licensing the new technology is alwayssuperior to licensing the obsolescent technology, from the perspective of the innovating firm. Although licensing the new innovation increases market competition and reduces the licensor's competitive advantage, it permits the patent-holding firm to extract more licensing revenue from its licensee. The increased benefit exceeds the loss from fiercer competition. Another interesting result is that the optimal licensing contract involves output royalty alone, even if both royalties and fixed-fees are feasible. However, consumer surplus and social welfare are higher under fixed-fee licensing. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: In the next section we provide the basic model. In Section 3, we study the licensing decision and derive the main results, by considering fixed-fee, royalty and two-part tariff contracts. In Section 4, we conclude the paper with some discussions. Some proofs are displayed in Appendix A.

In this paper, we develop a duopolistic model, where a firm that produces a high-quality product competes with another firm that produces a low-quality product. The high-quality producer has a new technology and an obsolescent technology. The patent-holding firm decides first whether to transfer its technology, and then chooses which technology to transfer. Transferring the obsolescent technology, while keeping the new one for its own use, enables the patent holder to obtain some licensing income, as well as maintain its competitive advantage. Licensing the new technology leads to a higher level of licensing revenue, but generates intense competition. Casual observation reveals that the innovating firm prefers to transfer its old innovation, while keeping the new one as a means of comparative advantage. In contrast to the general belief, we show that, regardless of the licensing contract, it is optimal to transfer the new technology, from the viewpoint of the patent-holding firm. Licensing the new technology permits the licensor to obtain more licensing profit, which dominates the loss from intense competition. Thus licensing the new technology is always superior to licensing the obsolescent one. The second interesting result is that the optimal licensing contract for the licensor is a royalty alone. It is worth mentioning that our results depend on the assumption of Cournot competition. Our results will not hold under Bertrand competition. If the firms engage in price competition, then licensing will not occur. Licensing the obsolescent technology harms the innovating firm, since the loss from intense competition outweighs the gain from licensing income. Licensing the new technology generates zero profits for both firms. Thus licensing will not occur under Bertrand competition. In addition, this paper focuses its analysis on the innovation that is licensed. For the sake of simplicity, we follow the general practice in the literature, see, for instance, Fauli-Oller and Sandonis (2003), and ignore imitation.11 We should keep in mind that technology licensing may help the licensees to develop their own technologies, through learning by doing. Taking into account the externalities, the patent-holding firm may change its preference for licensing.