I would also like to thank those for the comments I received from members of the RIETI Inventor Survey research project. In addition, we investigate whether co-ownership can limit licensing, due to the necessity of the agreement of both parties for a license. It is therefore uniquely suited to the analysis of the research collaboration at the project level, including the ownership structure of the invention.
A co-inventor from a vertical collaborator is a key determinant of the ownership structure of a vertical research collaboration when his non-contractual research effort is significant. A further survey was conducted in 2008 for respondents from 2007 with an emphasis on co-ownership. In chapter 3.3, we will look at the summary statistics of the ownership structure of vertical research collaborations.
Incidence of research collaborations : co-inventions and the other collaborations Figure 1 gives the share of external co-inventions (that is, co-invention with an inventor
The parallel survey in the US for the triadic patents was conducted in 2007 by Georgina Tech in collaboration with RIETI and collected 1,919 patents, with 2000-2003 priority years. In the following section 3.2, we will present the summary data on the occurrence of research collaborations (following Figures 1 and 2), based on the data from USA-Japan surveys, to see how important vertical research collaborations are.
Ownership structure of vertical research collaborations
Co-inventor of a user exists in 1.8% of patents and that of a supplier exists in 2.6% of cases. A user collaborated formally or informally (excluding co-invention) in 7.1 % of the cases while the supplier did so in 13 % of the cases. A user provided more than 20% of the research money in 2% of the cases, while the provider provided in 2.5% of the cases.
However, its impact is apparently much smaller than that of securing a co-inventor (the incidence of co-ownership is 5% with such knowledge and 2% without it).
Estimation models and variables
- Ownership equation
- Productivity equation
- License equation
- Detailed explanation of independent variables
Co-ownership is resolved if the total value for the two parties under the co-ownership is greater than that of the single property. From an incomplete contract perspective, the presence of a co-inventor from a cooperating organization is a key determinant, as co-ownership increases the incentive of such co-inventor. We introduce a variable indicating the level of importance of such knowledge for obtaining the research idea that yields the invention measured on a Likert scale (from 0 for not used to 5 for very important), in order to control for a bias of such.
Another important reason for co-ownership with a vertical collaborator is the financial constraint of the focal firm. In addition to the controls for the (prior) knowledge contribution and the financial contribution by a vertical collaborator (user or supplier), we also control for the existence of the collaboration other than co-invention, the. We control the quality of the invention by introducing the forward citations and the number of claims of the focal patent.
We also control for the research labor input (man-months) and the inventor training that can help strengthen control for the quality, as well as the nature of the underlying R&D (stage of research and product vs. process innovation). As a measure of the human capital contribution of the partner, we use a dummy variable (0 or 1) for the co-invention when a user or a supplier provides co-inventor(s). We introduce a dummy variable (prodproc) indicating whether the invention targets new process, process improvement, new product, product improvement of the applicant firm or the other.
We also introduce the number of inventors for the ownership equation (inventors) or the number of research labor months on a logarithmic scale (lnmonth2) as a measure of the size of the R&D project. We check the quality of the invention using the forward citations and the number of claims in the license comparison.
Estimation results
Determinants of vertical co-ownership
In particular, there is no tendency for a small supplier company to provide more co-ownership with the user. Very similarly, the existence of a co-inventor at the supplier and the importance of the supplier's knowledge for starting the project are very important (significant at the 1% and 5% levels, respectively) when accounting for co-ownership with the supplier. On the other hand, the existence of supplier cooperation, other than co-invention, is not relevant.
A co-inventor from a supplier increases the incidence of co-ownership with a supplier by 50 percentage points, controlling for the effects of supplier knowledge's contribution to getting the idea to research. The results of Model 4 suggest that the magnitude and significance of the coefficients for a supplier co-inventor also remain essentially the same, although the marginal effects drop significantly by 14 percentage points if we introduce According to the estimated marginal effects for Model 3, the importance of user knowledge by 5 points (in the 5-point Likert scale) increases the occurrence of co-ownership only by less than 1 percentage point.
The estimated marginal effects for Model 4 suggest that if the supplier makes a financial contribution of 20% or more of the research funding, this results in a 5.5 percentage point increase in the occurrence of co-ownership. This is relatively large, but still considerably smaller than the marginal effect of the co-inventor (36% points). In particular, there is no tendency for a small user firm to provide greater co-ownership with the supplier.
These results show that the contribution of inventive human capital from a vertical research partner is very important in determining the structure of research ownership. The results hold after controlling for the effects of ex-ante knowledge contribution, collaborations other than co-invention and financial contribution from a vertical partner, and co-inventor effects on co-ownership are very strong.
Research productivity
The importance of scientific literature as an input of knowledge for obtaining the idea for the research project, the size of the contribution of the research work and the doctoral degree of the inventor have highly significant positive coefficients (1% level), in accordance with our expectations. Controlling for these research inputs, under Models 5 and 6, while the co-inventor supplier increases the value of the focal patent significantly (increasing the probability of obtaining a top 10% patent by 5.9 percentage points) a user co-inventor does not. That is, a user co-inventor does not significantly help improve patent value through improved research productivity, beyond expanding the contribution of research work.
On the other hand, while a user's knowledge of the initiation of the project improves the value of the patent significantly, the inclusion of a user as a co-inventor does not. On the other hand, the importance of the knowledge of a user or a supplier (a vertical collaborator) for obtaining the research idea has a highly significant positive coefficient. As in the case of patent value, the importance of scientific literature as knowledge.
The importance of a user's or a supplier's (a vertical collaboration partner's) knowledge to get the idea for the research is not significant. Regarding the effects of the other control variables, the invention for new process or product development, the triadic patent, and the project from a large firm (as well as from a very small firm) are significantly more likely to generate the largest number of patents. , as expected. In short, even controlling for larger research inputs, including the total amount of research labor input, a vertical co-inventor increases the probability of commercialization of the invention very significantly.
Moreover, it significantly increases the value of the central patent in the event of a supplier co-invention, thereby increasing the firm's productivity. This provides strong support for Proposition 1 in the case of a supplier co-inventor, as a supplier co-inventor significantly improves research productivity and is an important determinant of ownership structure.
Licensing of co-owned invention
Conclusions
Consistent with this, we have found that the contribution of human capital (providing a co-inventor) by a supplier (the party in the upstream part of the transaction) is a very important determinant of ownership structure, with the supplier's initial knowledge is checked. contribution and its financial contribution to the project. We also find that a vendor co-inventor significantly improves research productivity in terms of the value of the focal patent and its commercialization potential, controlling for the size of the research labor and the other key inputs to the research. A user co-inventor significantly increases the commercialization probability of a central patent, as much as a supplier co-inventor, but does not increase the value productivity of the central patent and negatively affects productivity in terms of the number patents of a central patent. joint research.
Moreover, the willingness to license is not lower for a vertically co-owned patent, even if the co-ownership partially replaces a license. This suggests that co-ownership does not significantly constrain licensing, even if ex-post agreement for a license becomes necessary. This tends to reduce the importance of other inputs to the search, including the co-inventor coefficient.
However, since endogeneity of the same nature exists for the estimates for both user collaboration and for provider collaboration, the fact remains that a user tends to gain more ownership than a provider, even if a user contributes less to research productivity. Our results suggest that the co-ownership rule requiring an ex-post agreement between co-owners for a license does not limit licensing with respect to a patent in vertical co-ownership. Since commercialization of an invention involves significant additional investment, co-ownership may not be effective in encouraging such investment if it can be effectively implemented by either party.
A flexible ownership structure design, such as an option contract to transfer the ownership structure from co-ownership to sole ownership, as suggested by Nöldeke and Schmidt (1998), can play an important role in such an investment. Aghion Philippe and Jean Tirole The Management of Innovation,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. Lerner Josh and Robert Mergers, 1998, “Controlling Technology Alliances: An Empirical Analysis of the Biotechnology Industry”, The Journal of Industrial Economics, Vol.
Walsh, 2009a, "The R&D Process in the United States and Japan: Key Findings from the RIETI-Georgia Tech Inventors Survey," RIETI Discussion Papers, 09-E-010.
