{"id":8457,"date":"2019-09-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-30T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/business.uc3m.es\/\/38\/"},"modified":"2019-09-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-30T00:00:00","slug":"38","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/business.uc3m.es\/es\/38\/","title":{"rendered":"Choosing an intellectual property protection strategy: patents\u2019 unexpected benefits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Firms\u2019 ability to innovate and protect thefruits of their R&D investments is of ever increasing importance in a world
\nof fast paced competition and imitation. With regard to protection, R&D
\nmanagers are normally faced with the choice between keeping innovations secret and
\nfiling for patents. Compared to secrecy, patents have the distinct advantage of
\ngranting their holders a temporary monopoly on the use of an innovation (which
\nnormally last 20 years). However their use also presents serious drawbacks.
\nPatents are costly, they imply the disclosure of the innovation, the timespan
\nof protection is limited, and depending on the technology it might be easy to
\ninnovate around them. In practice these limitations entail that firms often
\nchoose to file for patents only when they have serious concerns about their
\nability to keep an innovation secret.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, despite all the flaws, a new study
\nby Eduardo Melero and Neus Palomeras from UC3M Business, and David Wehrheim from
\nIESE Business School, shows that patent benefits might extend beyond the legal
\nprotection of innovations and result in increased employee retention. In their
\nforthcoming article in Management Science, the authors provide evidence that
\nobtaining patent protection decreases the chance that the inventors associated
\nwith the innovation leave the firm by as much as 23%. Increase retention
\nimproves the firms ability to capture the value generated by investments in
\nstrategic human capital. Furthermore it also reduces the chances that firms
\nwill suffer from negative knowledge spillover to competitors.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n