Profiting from Innovation in the Digital Era: Evidence from the Swedish Videogames Industry - Ratio

Profiting from Innovation in the Digital Era: Evidence from the Swedish Videogames Industry - Ratio

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Working Paper No. 355: The artificial intelligence (AI) data access regime: what are the factors affecting the access and sharing of industrial AI data?

Bjuggren, P.O. & Long, V.

Publication year

2022

Published in

Bjuggren, P.O. & Long, V.

Abstract

This paper decomposes the factors that govern the access and sharing of machine-generated industrial data in the artificial intelligence era. Through a mapping of the key technological, institutional, and firm-level factors that affect the choice of governance structures, this study provides a synthesised view of AI data-sharing and coordination mechanisms. The question to be asked here is whether the hitherto de facto control—bilateral contracts and technical solution-dominating industrial practices in data sharing—can handle the long-run exchange needs or not.

Ratio Working Paper No. 329: IPRs and Appropriability in the Digital Era: Evidence from the Swedish Video (Computer) Games Industry

Publication year

2019

Published in

Ratio Working Paper

Abstract

This study contributes to a meso (industry)-level understanding of the changing complexity of the general appropriability conditions in the digital era on the one hand, and the role of IPRs in that (appropriability) on the other hand, through a study of an industry sector – the Swedish video (computer) games industry – where digital distribution prevails and IPRs are important (copyrights in derivative works; trademarks in game titles).Combining analyses on EPO patent data, EUIPO trademark data, firm-level interviews and survey data, this study firstly identifies a paradoxical development: on the one hand, there is a clear digital take-off of IPRs’ propensity, namely firms tend to be more active in registering trademarks and valuing their copyrights (firm size and technological platform matter though). On the other hand, the digital traits – digitally induced high levels of interactivities (between supply and demand) and the digital division of a product (in provisions) – provide strong protections (to the innovation) from a technical standpoint, which offsets the importance of IPRs. Then what are IPRs for, in a technologically tight appropriability regime? This study further identifies that the increase of the importance of IPRs is not derived from IPRs’ protection function, but from their signalling function. In the digital era, new products easily disappear in the digital crowd, and IPRs can act as an important remedy by signalling the origin and quality of products as well as new innovations. This study provides a snapshot of the digital complexity pertinent to the issue of appropriability.

Ratio Working Paper No. 318: Trademarks and Appropriability in the Digital Era – Evidences from Swedish Video Games Industry

Long, V. & Domeij, B.

Publication year

2019

Published in

Ratio Working Paper

Abstract

What role can trademark play in appropriability regime, especially in a digitalized era where many innovations are easy to copy and difficult to protect, and where rapid diffusion is the norm? This study, using the Swedish video games industry as a case, aims to provide some insights and tentative answers to those questions. Combining firm-level interviews, statistical data concerning EUIPO trademarks filed by the Swedish video games industry, we present the quantitative trends of trademarking across this industry sector (i.e. timeline; distribution across technological platforms and firm sizes; correlation with turnover), as well as qualitative explanations for that. This study contributes to a meso-level explanation of the role of trademarks (registrations) in appropriability on the one hand, and to the understanding of the complexity of the general appropriability conditions (and logic) in the Digital Era, on the other.