Knowledge positions in high-tech markets : trajectories, standards, strategies and true innovators

Essential patents refer to patents that are indispensable in order to make any product that complies with a technological standard. Portfolios of essential patents have often been used to indicate the strategic value of a firm's knowledge. We propose a range of alternative indicators based on a firm's position in patent citation network. Using a historical narrative and the actual licencing payments for the 3G W-CDMA standard in mobile telecommunications as a reference, we find that our alternative indicators provide better indicators for firms' knowledge positions and their long-term impact on technological change. Our proposed indicators can also be applied in markets that are not based on standards, and may not only be valuable to scholars but also to practitioners. Our findings also raise some concern over technology inclusion processes at standards bodies, and we recommend policy makers to consider our proposed method in order to critically look at these processes.