Abstract

This article deals with the intellectual property (IP) disassembly problem, which is an increasingly important problem in various contexts. The IP disassembly (IPD) problem is defined as the problem of finding a contractual arrangement for allocation of IP rights and licenses that allows for separating and disintegrating a company, business unit, project entity, resource set, or IP unit in order to enable a transaction, organizational transfer, or dissolution of it. Based on a comparative case study of corporate transactions of Saab Automobile and Volvo Car Corporation this article conceptualizes and characterizes the problem and then develops an IPD framework for managing it.