We analyze the patent licensing contracts offered by an insider innovator that has private information about the quality of innovation that can be transferred to two downstream firms. When information is complete, the first-best choice is a pure-royalty contract which is accepted by both firms (i.e., is nonexclusive). When information is incomplete, however, no nonexclusive contract can be supported as a separating equilibrium; it can only be the case where the innovator sells an exclusive contract to only one firm or a nonlicensing contract where no license is sold. In particular, when the gap in the innovation between the efficient and inefficient type is sufficiently small, there does not exist any separating equilibrium. It is sharply different from the case of an outsider innovation, in which a separating equilibrium always exists.

中文翻译：

---

专利许可标志着成本降低创新：内部创新者的案例


我们分析了内部创新者提供的专利许可合同，该创新者拥有有关创新质量的私人信息，这些信息可以转移给两家下游公司。当信息完整时，最佳选择是两家公司都接受的纯特许权使用费合同（即非排他性）。然而，当信息不完整时，就无法支持非排他性契约作为分离均衡。这只可能是创新者仅向一家公司出售独家合同或不出售许可的非许可合同的情况。特别是，当高效型和低效型之间的创新差距足够小时，不存在任何分离均衡。它与局外人创新的情况截然不同，在局外人创新中总是存在分离均衡。