Organizational Strategies for Intellectual Property Rights in Technology Standardization

The value of intellectual proprietary rights (IPRs) for technology standardization in emerging information and communications technologies has increased. The inherently closed nature of IPR seems to be in direct conflict with the openness necessary to spread a technology, but organizations are creating strategies to maneuver aspects of IPR so that they can create standards as well as protect their rights. This paper provides a brief overview of literature on strategies organizations have taken for standardization, especially in the decision to collaborate or go alone, and the role of IPR in these decisions. I propose a research question and plan to address a gap in current research to analyze IPR strategies not solely in relation to collaboration and to take into account factors such as market position, competing technologies, and product life cycle.