Patent Licensing with Spillovers

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of spillover on extent of licensing when cost reducing innovation is introduced and licensed to a number of oligopolistic firms. We characterize the equilibrium number of licenses that are sold through an auction. An increase in the number of licenses has two effects. First, it increases the competition between the licensees. Second, due to spillover, the non-licensees become more efficient contributing to even more competition. We find that despite these effects, a patentee of a significant innovation will sell more licenses when there is spillover than without spillover thereby inducing even more competition. In this case, consumer surplus will be greater with spillover. However, if the innovation is less significant, then the patentee will sell less licenses with spillover thereby restrict competition. In this case the market price will be higher and the consumer surplus will be smaller.