The Impact Of Technology Capacity Development Of Latecomer Firms On Patent Hold-up

Presently, most of China’s industries and technology fields belong to the latecomer enterprises. When compared to leading foreign enterprises, there is still a huge gap in their technology capacities. Having their own advantages in R&D investment costs, risks,etc., the development of technological capability of enterprises of our country is generally experienced the three stages of technology introduction, digestion, as well as absorption and autonomous innovation。In technology introduction stage, the most common form for latecomer enterprises to obtain technology patent license is through the payment method. Compared to the leading foreign enterprises, there is such a huge technology gap that latecomer enterprises are obviously in a weak position in the negotiation and the game of patent licensing fees, with its weak negotiation abilities, which can easily lead to unreasonable licensing fees, forming a patent hold-up.Using related economics theories and game theory knowledge, the formation factors and related effects of patent hold-up are analyzed in this article, and the impact of technology capability is mainly studied. Firstly, the related models of Lemly-Shaprio patent hold-up are introduced after a literature review on patent licensing and patent hold-up theory. Then according to the latecomer enterprises technology development path, the research is conducted stage by stage, and the suggestions and strategies related are given on the patent hold-up, from the macro policy level and the enterprise level, with introducing the concept of latecomer enterprises at first. In the patent license, patent license is generally analyzed in the market structure aspect, from the oligopoly market structure to the multi oligopoly, and then subdivided into different dimensions, such as innovation degree, internal and external innovators, information structure,and so on. Under the conditions that there is a huge gap in the technical ability of the latecomer enterprises, the latecomer enterprises’ negotiation ability with the leading enterprises is especially weak, as a result the patent hold-up is easily to come.Based on the above study, the corresponding suggestions and strategies for solving patent hold-up are given in the article from the aspects of national macroeconomic policy and enterprise micro level. Firstly, on the macroeconomic policy level, the existing patent law, antitrust law and the disadvantages of the related legislation are mainly analyzed, as well as other national strategical laws, and then put forward to the perspective of some policy suggestions from the system of patent law and anti-monopoly law. On the micro level, for the enterprises actually, to weaken or terminate the patent hold-up, the core is still to develop the technology capacities, and reduce gap of technology capabilities of enterprises of our country and the leading foreign enterprises, increasing chips in patent licensing negotiations; At the same time, various companies can also be combined together to negotiate, enhancing the negotiation abilities. Finally, establishing the patent strategy of enterprises, mainly the patent search and cross licensing, the latecomer enterprises in different technological capability stages can have different response strategies. Case facts demonstration is a solution of patent hold-up of latecomer enterprises as well.