Paper published in the Int. J. Intellectual Property Management, Vol. 9, No. 2, 2019:
Intellectual property rights, complementarity and the firm’s economic performance
Liang Guo-Fitoussi, Ahmed Bounfour* and Sabrine Rekik
*Corresponding author
Abstract: This paper analyses the optimal use of formal intellectual property
rights (IPR) at the firm level. We examine the impact of combinations of IPR
on the firm’s productivity in order to study the complementarity or substitution
relationship between them. Our data are extracted from two sets of community
innovation survey (CIS): CIS IV and CIS 2006. We investigate
complementarity (substitution) at two levels: in the context of formal IPR
strategies and when they are combined with other intangible and managerial
assets based on both adoption and productivity approaches. Mixed results are
found for the complementarity of IPR alone. However, in combination with
other activities, there is high complementarity with innovative and innovation
cooperation variables. These results suggest that IPR strategies should be
combined with other complementarity assets for the optimal appropriation of
innovation profits.