Innovation in Multi-Invention Contexts: Mapping Solutions to Technological and Intellectual Property Complexity

by David Teece, Deepak Somaya, Simon Wakeman


  PDF
 

Abstract

More than ever, commercializing new patent-based products requires drawing on multiple inventions typically spread among a variety of organizations. Success requires overcoming the organizational barriers and transaction costs involved with accessing intellectual property. Innovators must also evaluate how best to appropriate value from the unique combinations that they create. This article presents a framework that provides ways of approaching both these challenges. These include a set of guidelines to assist managers in choosing from among three types of commercialization arrangements: licensing, componentization, and integration. This article then explores three strategies for appropriating the value of the innovator’s own patent(s): proprietary, defensive, and leveraging. The choice of a strategy determines the scope of the intellectual property portfolio that needs to be assembled to best capture value. Four case studies demonstrate the application of the key theoretical concepts in real-world situations.

California Management Review

Berkeley-Haas's Premier Management Journal

Published at Berkeley Haas for more than sixty years, California Management Review seeks to share knowledge that challenges convention and shows a better way of doing business.

Learn more
Follow Us