Strategic Reasons for Patenting: Between Exclusion and Coordination Rationales

This contribution aims at analyzing the role of patents in inter-organization networks in the field of biotechnology. We examine the traditional rationale for firms to apply for a patent, which focuses on the protection against competition as the basic motive of application, and we claim that another, complementary motive should be explicitly taken into account: The role of patent as a negotiation and/or cooperation instrument. We illustrate our main propositions through the case study of an emergent network, namely the cluster of Upper-Rhine Biovalley.