Seminar (Dept. of General Management)

Theme：IP Governance in Cyberspace: The Case of Original Design Protection Program of An Internet Platform Company

Speaker：Can Huang (School of Management, Zhejiang University)

Time：2022-05-26 10:00

Address：Online Meeting

Language：Chinese/English

ABSTRACT:

In 2018, an internet platform company launched the original design protection program (ODPP), which offers intellectual protection (IP) protection to the originally designed products sold in the company’s platforms. Different from the conventional IP protection offered by government agencies, the ODPP offers a design right which can only be valid and protected in the platform. We use the data from August 2018 to October 2020 to evaluate the effect of ODPP on product sales. We find that participation in the ODPP significantly increased the sales revenue of originally designed product and prolonged the selling time of the products. Both large and small enterprises benefited from the ODPP to have better sales revenue for their originally designed products. The enterprises which had higher credit scores benefited more from the ODPP than those with lower credit scores. This study reveals that an IP right established by a platform company can generate returns to innovators which is similar to the effects of IP rights protected by governments.