Licensing a non-drastic innovation under double informational asymmetry

This paper deals with the problem faced by a patentee owning a new production process whose value is unknown ex ante. The patentee must license the new technology to users in order to profit from it, and each potential licensee has production costs using the technology that are unknown to everyone until after contracting, at which point each licensee gets private information about her own costs. Moreover, the patentee cannot observe outputs of potential licensees and, therefore, must use lump-sum rather than per unit royalty schedules to license the technology. In this setting, the optimal licensing scheme from both the industry and the innovator viewpoints is defined, as well as the socially optimal dynamic industrial structure to market the technology. Welfare aspects of regulation on patents length are also discussed in this context. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.