Peeters, Carine; de la Potterie, Bruno van Pottelsberghe --- "Understanding the Patenting Behaviour of Firms" [2006] ELECD 355; in Bosworth, Derek; Webster, Elizabeth (eds), "The Management of Intellectual Property" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: The Management of Intellectual Property

Editor(s): Bosworth, Derek; Webster, Elizabeth

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845421120

Section: Chapter 12

Section Title: Understanding the Patenting Behaviour of Firms

Author(s): Peeters, Carine; de la Potterie, Bruno van Pottelsberghe

Number of pages: 26

Extract:

12. Understanding the patenting
behaviour of firms
Carine Peeters and Bruno van Pottelsberghe
de la Potterie

1 INTRODUCTION

The present book is about intellectual property (IP), `once considered
the most boring subject in the world' (Rivette and Kline 2000, p. 1). The
authors of Rembrandts in the Attic demonstrate that the ownership of ideas
is now becoming part of the day-to-day business life, policy debates and
legal arguments. Publications on the strategic management of intellectual
property (IP) have indeed recently flourished (for example, Glazier 2000;
Parr and Sullivan 1996), together with a vast economic literature, with both
theoretical and empirical contributions.
This chapter aims at contributing to the literature dedicated to the
identification of the factors underlying the large variance observed across
firms in terms of patenting behaviour. The theoretical framework suggests
that a firm's patenting behaviour is determined by three types of factors.
The first concerns the innovation strategy of a firm and its general attitude
towards intellectual property. The second is related to the perceived barriers
to innovation and to patenting. The third takes into account firm- and
sector-specific characteristics, such as size, age and market structure.
Several concepts and relations discussed in this chapter have already been
highlighted by a number of authors. However, this chapter adds to the
existing literature in the sense that it identifies new potential explanatory
factors of a firm's patenting behaviour. It includes these determinants
from an integrated perspective, putting together different concepts that
are generally addressed ...