Innovation is a source of competitive advantage. In other words, firms may leverage innovation to generate rents, at least temporarily. And this is intended to be a self-sustained business model: part of the rent extracted from the market may be re-invested into new technological developments which in turn permit additional innovations, thus regenerating the sources of rents. This is the positive loop of innovation. In this sense, business would be a permanent hunt for innovations, in search of rents. Yet, innovations need to be protected if firms want to benefit from rents over long periods of time. However, the strategic management literature tends to suggests that patents are a weak protection against aggressive imitators. Secrecy may help but we also know that technology ends up leaking in most cases. Speed in new developments to cut "time to market" may be another way of protecting the technological advance of the firm. But again, this may not be enough as start-ups may out-compete the established firm in the race for innovation. This is where Dr. Klaus Jennewein's key idea comes into the picture. The core of his thesis is that brand equity may be combined to technological protections such as patents to build a multi-layer, complex, intricate shield to protect the sources of rents against competitors and imitators.

Klappentext

The book investigates the interplay of brand equity and technological assets at the corporate level. In a grounded theory approach it develops a model of how companies in technology intensive industries can improve the appropriation of the returns of their intangible technological assets with the help of brand equity and thus improve their competitiveness. The theoretical discussions are supported by two extensive case studies on Bayer Aspirin and Cisco Systems as well as an extensive econometric analysis. The developed model points out how the strategic relevance of immaterial technological assets and brand equity develop along the technology-life-cycle and indicates how companies can, by an integrated technology and brand equity management, appropriate the returns of their initial technological advantage in the long-run. The implications of the findings for business companies as well as researchers are clearly revealed.

Inhalt
The New Era of Intangible Assets.- Case Studies on the Appropriation of Intellectual Assets.- Intangible Assets: Characteristics, Generation & Protection.- Strategic Management of Intangible Assets.- Econometric Analysis.- General Summary and Conclusion.