Abstract

We assume a multistage oligopoly wherein a given number of innovators compete by selling their substitutive technologies. Each innovator sequentially and independently chooses how many licenses to sell, and subsequently, all licensees compete à la Cournot in the product market. We show that, in equilibrium, the total number of licensees grows exponentially with the number of innovators. In addition, this sequential outcome is also obtained as a subgame perfect Nash equilibrium in pure strategies of a game with endogenous timing. Interestingly, by extending the duopoly model of Badia et al. (Math Soc Sci 108:8–13, 2020) to the case of more than two innovators and exploring pure strategy equilibria instead of mixed strategy equilibria, we derive drastically different policy implications, in terms of patent regulations. Our results suggest that more competition in the upstream market (e.g., by relaxing patent protection against the appearance of similar technologies) tends to increase downstream competition and welfare instead of discouraging or delaying technology adoption. In addition, our analysis is extended to explore the strategic role of public investment in basic R &D.

中文翻译：

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多种竞争技术的顺序许可

摘要

我们假设存在多级寡头垄断，其中一定数量的创新者通过出售其替代技术进行竞争。每个创新者依次独立地选择要销售的许可证数量，随后所有被许可人都像古诺一样在产品市场上竞争。我们表明，在均衡状态下，被许可人的总数随着创新者的数量呈指数增长。此外，这种顺序结果也可以作为具有内生时序的纯策略博弈中的子博弈完美纳什均衡而获得。有趣的是，通过扩展巴迪亚等人的双头垄断模型。（Math Soc Sci 108:8-13, 2020）对于两个以上创新者并探索纯策略均衡而不是混合策略均衡的情况，我们在专利监管方面得出了截然不同的政策含义。我们的研究结果表明，上游市场的更多竞争（例如，通过放松针对类似技术出现的专利保护）往往会增加下游竞争和福利，而不是阻碍或延迟技术的采用。此外，我们的分析还延伸到探索公共投资在基础研发中的战略作用。