THE EFFECT OF NON-PRODUCING ENTITIES ON THE INNOVATION PROCESS

摘要

Intangible assets, such as intellectual property (IP), are increasingly finding their way into arncompany?s balance sheet. Studies prove that intangible assets have become as important asrntangible ones and that companies that manage their intellectual property strategically well arernconsiderably more successful in the entrepreneurial sense. It is recognised that there isrnpotential to exploit IP more effectively. In order that IP leads to innovation, a successfulrntechnology transfer is necessary and universities and producing industry used to be the mainrnplayers in this field. As a relatively new development, third-party companies offer to takernover this task. These so-called Non-Producing Entities (NPEs) describe patent owners orrnpatent managers that do not invent new technology themselves but purchase third party IPrnand strive to sell licences and gain license royalties. NPEs have the potential to play anrnimportant role in the innovation process. Due to the recent rise of these service providers,rnhowever, NPE?s effect on success or failure rate for innovation has so far not been properlyrninvestigated. Even though the entrance of knowledge transfer service providers has beenrnacknowledged, academic literature has hardly accounted the different dynamics this mightrncause for the exploitation of IP. The main reason for this is that academia has very limitedrnaccess to empirical research or case studies. Due to the growing role of these servicernproviders, there is a need to explore this business field with a systematic literature review.rnUsing electronic databases complemented with archival research and books touching on thisrntopic, the research objectives of this project are to evaluate the role of NPEs in the technologyrntransfer process and their contribution to the innovation process. During the research, wernfound out, that NPE?s business not only has positive and negative effects on the innovationrnprocess but also influences legal and economic systems. Nevertheless, given the scarcity ofrnempirical data, it is not yet univocally proven to be beneficial to the innovation process.