Research On The Influence Mechanism Of Technology Collaboration Within Patent Pools On Technology Competition In High-tech Enterprises

High-tech enterprises increasingly use patents to develop and sustain competitive advantages in a knowledge-based economy.Modern technology innovation has the characteristics of high investment and high risk.It is difficult for a single enterprise to complete product R&D completely relying on its own strength and impossible to monopolize all the cutting-edge technologies.To address patent fragmentation challenges,high-tech enterprises generally implement technology collaborations through patent pool,which is an agreement between two or more parties to license their patents on a particular technology to one another and to third parties based on some fixed terms.Patent pool of high-tech enterprises is an effective institutional arrangement to overcome the dilemma of patent thicket and The Tragedy of the Anticommons,as it can eliminate patent licensing barriers,lowering the transaction costs,and allowing mutual acquisition of complementary technologies.Pools have also emerged as a prominent mechanism to resolve patent disputes,and jointly strengthen technology development and trade.High-tech enterprises coexist and co evolve in the pool,and promote high-tech products development and trade.Patent pool is usually combined with technical standards.Enterprises in the pool use its network effect and the Lock-in Effect to block competitors,realize global technology monopoly and obtain huge economic benefits.However,high-tech enterprises in the pool not only cooperate,but also compete fiercely in technology.It is of great significance to study the influence of technology collaboration within patent pools on technology competition in high-tech enterprises,such as establishing a more comprehensive strategic alliance behavior model,strengthening technology collaboration innovation,preventing excessive competition,cultivating innovation ecology and promoting high-quality development.This study explained the influence mechanism of focal member’s technology collaboration within patent pools on technology competition in high-tech enterprises.Using the social network analysis,this paper explained the construction and accumulation trend of technology collaboration within patent pools.Combined with patent data and enterprise attributes data,this paper made an empirical study on the impact of patent pool technology collaboration within patent pools on technology competition in high-tech enterprises.The main contents include the following four aspects.(1)The technology collaboration of patent pool is divided into two dimensions: the relationship strength and relationship duration of patent pools.The concept models of the direct effect,mediating effect and moderating effect between technology collaboration within patent pools and technology competition in high-tech enterprises have been explained.(2)Data used for the empirical analysis and its collection process have been explained.Based on the data of 12 patent pools of MPEG LA,a well-known international patent pool organizer,from 2006 to 2018,the alliance pairing within pool members has been constructed,and 5700 alliance pairs and 74100 observations have been formed,and the technology collaboration and competition situation have been described.based on theoretical analysis to propose research hypotheses,combining patent data and the enterprise attributes data,we used econometric model to do an empirical test,the results found that the relationship strength in patent pools of high-tech enterprises has a significant positive impact on the strength of focal member’s technology attack suffering from alliance partners.The relationship duration in patent pools has inverted U-shaped relationship with the strength of focal member’s technology attack suffering from alliance partners.(3)Ambidextrous innovation and alliance learning have been considered in the relationship between “technology collaboration within patent pools” and “technology competition in high-tech enterprises”,and the “black box” between “technology collaboration within patent pools”and “technology competition in high-tech enterprises” has been explained.The mediating effects have been empirically tested.The results show that between the relationship strength and the technology competition,the alliance learning plays the partial mediation role,the exploratory innovation plays the partial masking effect,while the masking effect of exploitative innovation is not significant;between the relationship duration and technology competition,alliance learning and exploratory innovation play the partial mediation roles,while the masking effect of exploitative innovation is not significant.(4)Three moderators including exploratory collaboration of alliance partners,network location and technology similarity,have been introduced to construct a complete analysis framework.Based on theoretical analysis,research hypotheses have been put forward.Calculate exploratory collaboration as the number of authorized patents applied for collaboratively.Network centrality is measured by the number of patent citations,which is calculated with UCINET.The technological similarity is measured by technology correlation coefficient between pool members.Using the econometric model for empirical test,the study found that exploratory collaboration and network centerality both weaken the positive association between the relationship strength and the technology competition,while technological similarity strengthens the positive association.Technological similarity strengthens the inverted Ushaped association between the relationship duration and the technology competition.The innovations and contributions of this study are as follows.First,we found that in addition to collaboration leading to more collaboration in the form of parters,technology collaboration may also lead to a new interactive path,that is,the transition from collaboration in the technology market to competition.Second,we constructed the theoretical framework on the influence of technology collaboration within patent pools on technology competition in high-tech enterprises,which reveals the mechanism of how competitors compete based on technology collaboration.Third,this study provides new experience and evidence for the research on technological coopetition between alliance partners,which contributes to the literature on the patent pool effect.Furthermore,we also put forward policy suggestions and management suggestions for the country,industry and enterprises on technology coopetition within patent pools of high-tech enterprises.