The Handbook of Technology and Innovation Management

11.6. Conclusion

We began by re-examining the question that prompted David Teece in his exploration of complementary assets: why do some firms profit from their innovation investments, and others not? The emergence of intermediate markets for technology gives a new importance to this question, both for antitrust policy, and for firm strategy. Particularly for the latter concern, the rise of intermediate markets creates situations where the ownership of the IP that undergirds a technology may not align with the ownership of the requisite complementary assets needed to practice the technology.

Such situations render the appropriability of innovation investments potentially problematic, even when the innovator owns or has access to the requisite complementary assets. For now the innovator must also own or gain access to the requisite IP assets as well, in order to profit from its innovation investments. There are strategic dimensions involved in gaining this access, and alert innovators must take steps to neutralize the threat that an alert IP owner may pose. One result of these strategic issues is that the ownership of complementary assets may confer leverage of the IP owner, unless steps are taken to neutralize that leverage. A variety of orchestration tactics are sketched, to illustrate the range of potential problems that this alignment of IP may entail, as well as the steps companies are taking to address them.

Once we begun to ponder these orchestration moves, we come to understand ...