Table 1

Knotted paradoxes and IP management

Emerging tensionIP management
Sustainability pathways
Incumbent-led versus venture-led change
Ventures protect their IP in order to simultaneously share and protect their knowledge, enabling collaboration with incumbents, integrating with existing infrastructure and hence replacing existing technologies. IP is likewise used to legitimize ventures, creating a market for their innovation and promoting imitation of concepts to create momentum and grow the market. Meanwhile, IP prevents stealing or one-on-one imitation of the venture’s knowledge and technology
Sustainability challenges
Sustainability ideals versus economic incentives
Ventures use IP to protect new initiatives from existing priorities, gain legitimacy and raise awareness about sustainability, as well as negotiate funding with lower or different growth expectations. Moreover, ventures seek new (collective) ownership structures such as patent pools, pledges and open source with a greater potential for sharing and collaboration, and a weaker incentive toward price competition
Role of IP
Innovation diffusion versus venture survival
Ventures use IP to protect the specific method of their innovation while publishing openly about their concepts to promote diffusion and adoption in the industry at large. They hence seek a niche to profit from while encouraging knowledge sharing and collaboration, prompting imitation as well as follow-on and derivative innovation
Source(s): Authors’ own work

or Create an Account

Close subscription notice
Close access options