Essays on licensing games.

摘要

In this thesis we consider licensing of quality-improving innovations in models of product differentiation. We analyze various models of vertical and horizontal differentiation with price competition. The first model combines elements of both types of differentiation and utilizes a logit demand framework. We identify the optimal licensing policy and trace its effects on the market structure. When the number of firms in the market is very large we make the assumption that firms ignore the effect of their strategy choices on the market outcome (monopolistic competition). That allows to solve the logit model explicitly and derive closed-form solutions for prices, optimal royalties, revenues from licensing etc. Similar results are obtained if we don't assume monopolistic competition but rather modify the original logit demand system. In the last two chapters we present two models where product differentiation is one-dimensional: the first model is based on the Shaked and Sutton model of vertical differentiation and the second is the location model. In the Shaked and Sutton model with two firms the innovator will always license the patent to one firm only (this is due to the maximum differentiation principle). In the location model we analyze the case of 2, 4 and n firms. One of the main messages of this thesis is that different types of product differentiation result in different degrees of dissemination of the new technology.