Intellectual Property Clearinghouses and Investment in R&D

"21 January 2008" -- p. 1We examine the effects of third-party clearinghouses that license intellectual property on behalf of inventors when downstream uses of IP require licenses to multiple complementary innovations. We consider different simple clearinghouse royalty redistribution schemes, and different innovation environments. We show that clearinghouses generally increase incentives to invest in R&D as they increase efficiency in licensing. However, they may reduce expected profits of inventors who have the unique ability to develop a crucial component. We also show that clearinghouses also may increase or decrease expected welfare, and are more likely to be beneficial when R&D costs are relatively high, and/or the probability of success for inventors is relatively low.科学研究費補助金（特別推進研究） = Grant-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Research28 p