How Does Patent Portfolio Affect Enterprise Innovation Performance? Perspective Of Knowledge Integration

The competition of intellectual property among enterprises gradually becomes fiercer under the background of cumulative innovation,and the traditional patent strategy based on fragmented patents is increasingly insufficient to deal with the complex patent environment caused by patent thickets.The patent portfolio strategy can increase business value of patent assets through realizing synergy effects.Patent portfolio also plays an important role in strengthening intellectual property protection and helps to continuously improve innovation performance of knowledge-intensive enterprises.Therefore,more enterprises begin to construct patent portfolios with large size and complicated structure from a strategic viewpoint in order to obtain the competitive advantages.Scholars have studied the formative causation of patent portfolio,how patent portfolio to influence R&D Strategy,and how patent portfolio to influence the activities of patent licensing.However,there is a lack of sufficient understanding and consensus on the mechanism of patent portfolio to influence innovation performance.This paper tries to build a theoretical model to illustrate how patent portfolio size,patent portfolio diversity and technical scope to influence innovation performance using knowledge-based theory.We use the logic of “patent portfolio-knowledge integration-innovation performance” to construct the theoretical model.And we introduce knowledge integration as the mediator,the scope of legal rights as the moderator.Through regression analysis of 98 enterprises in the electronics and communication equipment manufacture industry from 2013 to2017 to test our hypotheses.Finally,two cases of Huawei and ZTE are used to demonstrate the model from the time dimension.The empirical results show that patent portfolio size has a significantly positive impact on prime operating revenue and return on asset.The technical scope of patent portfolio has a significantly positive impact on operating profit,but has a negative impact on prime operating revenue and return on asset.While patent portfolio diversity presents reverse U relation with enterprise innovation performance.This,however,is only in theory.The diversity negatively influences innovation performance on the actual situation.Patent portfolio size positively influences knowledge integration significantly,and technical scope negatively influences knowledge integration significantly.While diversity negatively influences knowledge integration.Knowledge integration has a positive impact on innovation performance,especially on prime operating revenue.Hence knowledge integration plays an intermediary role between the patent portfolio and innovation performance.The scope of legal rights positively moderates the relationship between knowledge integration competence and innovation performance.These conclusions provide theoretical reference for enterprises to construct or adjust patent portfolio scientifically.