Cooperative R&D with Endogenous Technology Differentiation

The choice of a particular technology when there is a set of them available to firms has not appeared in the R&D literature yet. We show some examples and present a model in which firms choose their technologies from a continuum of available profiles and the resulting spillovers depend on the compatibility among firms' R&D technologies. Our results indicate that non-cooperating firms are interested in using the same or very similar technologies. Therefore firms seek to establish coordination mechanisms such as patent pools or Research Joint Ventures. A RJV leads to higher levels of social welfare than patent pools or the non-cooperative case.