R&D collaboration in the automotive innovation environment: An analysis of co-patenting activities

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold: to analyze to what extent innovation output of R & D collaborations, proxied by co-patenting activities in terms of quantity, characteristics and value, differs depending on whether the engaged R & D partners have a certain type of relationship (allies, suppliers and subsidiaries); to identify possible automakers co-patenting patterns taking into account the differences in the innovation output with their R & D partners. Design/methodology/approach – To reach the aims, the authors matched two types of data: co-assigned patent portfolio of four automakers and relationship type between automakers and their co-assignees. Matching the company names of the two data sources allowed the authors to obtain the final data set used to carry out extensive descriptive and regression analysis, both on a firm- and patent-level. Findings – Results show differences in the characteristics and the technological value of patented inventions in relation with the type of collabor...

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