This paper examines the changes of royalty terms of technology import contracts of Japan in 1980s and 1990s, based on the sector-level panel data. Major findings are the following: (1) The share of high royalty contracts increased significantly in 1980s and 1990s, which, however, mainly reflected the change of the composition of imported technologies, especially the increasing share of software...

This paper revisits the standard analysis of licensing a cost reducing innovation by an outside innovator to a Cournot oligopoly. We propose a new mechanism that combines elements of a license auction with royalty licensing by granting the losers of the auction the option to sign a royalty contract. The optimal new mechanism eliminates the losses from exclusionary licensing without reducing bid...

We study several interconnected problems that arise under the current U.S. patent system when a patent covers one component or feature of a complex product. This situation is common in the information technology sector of the economy. Our analysis applies to cases involving reasonable royalties but not lost profits. First, we show using bargaining theory that the threat to obtain a permanent in...

By formulating negotiations about licensing payments as cooperative games without side payments, we investigate stable bargaining outcomes in licensing a cost-reducing technology of an external patent holder to oligopolistic firms producing a homogeneous product under two licensing policies: fee and royalty. The final bargaining outcome in fee licensing is uniquely determined, because the NTU b...