Internationalizing Intellectual Property

This chapter considers internationalizing strategies to profit from IP knowledge, that is, the commercialization of IP in international markets. First, it emphasizes the pre-commercializing evaluation of the idea of expanding internationally. Such an evaluation should be conducted to assess the owners’ capacity, reasons to expand abroad, international IP environment and timing for IP commercialization. Second, further evaluation should be made to analyze which strategies are available for IP commercialization. These strategies need to take IP into account in assessing the costs, profits, risks and levels of headquarters (HQ) control involved in adopting a particular international commercializing strategy. Finally, the chapter discusses the decision-making process to the actual selection of an appropriate strategy for internationally commercializing an IP.