Abstract:

In recent years， the level of intellectual property protection in our country has been continuously improved. Therefore， as the key to the use of intellectual property rights， patent licensing is becoming more and more common among enterprises. However， unreasonable licensing contracts often lead to patent infringements and legal disputes， such as patent litigation disputes between Huawei and Qualcomm. In this context， the following three questions are studied： （i） How does patent-holding company design and choose the form of patent licensing contracts to avoid patent infringement disputes？ （ii） How does the licensee determine its manufacturing outsourcing strategy？ （iii） How will realistic factors such as market conditions and product sales affect the equilibrium of the technology supply chain？In this paper， a transnational technology supply chain consisting of a technology supplier， a branded manufacturer and an original equipment manufacturer （OEM） is considered， then three multi-stage dynamic game model are constructed with asymmetric information. In this model， the technology supplier needs to design the licensing contract and guarantee that the branded manufacturer will be willing to accept the contract. The branded manufacturer needs to determine the product sale price and R&D investment level. The OEM decide the product outsourcing production price. The main work includes four parts. At first， the optimal licensing contract is proposed and the optimal pricing and R&D investment decisions are analyzed， respectively. Second， the technology supplier’s optimal licensing contract selection and the nature of the licensing contract are analyzed. Third， to address the value of licensing contract， the optimal pricing and R&D investment decisions are compared under different types of licensing contracts. Finally， the impact of key parameter on the equilibrium of the transnational technology supply chain is illustrated through a numerical example.The results show that， in the patent licensing stage， the optimal licensing contracts includes fixed-fee licensing contract and two-part tariff licensing contract. Among them， the technology supplier can obtain more profits under a fixed fee contract. Moreover， the optimal licensing contract selection of the technology supplier is not the branded manufacturer’s possession strategy， and may result in the loss of the branded manufacturer’s profit， which reveals the cause of patent licensing conflict in industrial practice. Moreover， different forms of licensing contracts will affect the optimal decision of the manufacturer and the OEM. When the technology supplier chooses two-part tariff licensing contract， the branded manufacturer will reduce the level of R&D investment， which is conducive to improving the profit level of the OEM and consumer welfare. However， in the collaborative R&D cooperation， the economies of scale of OEM are not necessarily beneficial to branded manufacturer. Finally， from the perspective of market share， the brand manufacturers may have an incentive to invest more in research and development， which is conducive to increasing product demand and bringing positive externalities to technology supplier and OEM. At the same time， in order to make up for R&D investment， consumers may need to spend a higher price to purchase products.In summary， three multi-stage dynamic game models between the technology supplier， the branded manufacturer and the OEM are constructed to study the optimal patent licensing contract， which can provide theoretical and methodological guidance for the transnational technology supply chain competition and cooperation. In the future research， the optimal patent licensing contract design considering market competition situation can be further studied.

Key words: transnational technology supply chain, patent licensing, information asymmetry, dynamic game