Co-operative Development of Technology: Understanding the Risks and Creating Opportunities to Excel

Authors

• David L. Hitchcock

Abstract

While technological advances come with increasing speed and complexity, the globalization of the economy has forced companies to become leaner and more focused on their core areas of expertise. As a result companies are forced to seek and acquire assistance from others when dealing with certain technological areas. In such cases, businesses often form co-operative relationships, such as outsourcing development work, mutual development agreements, joint ventures. These and other co-operative affiliations serve to facilitate a rapid adaptation to market and technology changes. These types of arrangements often come with significant risks, among them loss of trade secrets and competitive know-how, the unwitting creation of competitors, impeded marketing options, and legal obstacles related to exploiting and enforcing intellectual property rights. At the same time, these affiliations offer opportunities to excel by reducing costs, enabling rapid product development, as well as opportunities to benefit from the marketing prowess of others. Thus, speed has become the focus of the business manager, who often recognizes that those businesses that succeed in getting their product to the market first generally retain a higher percentage of the market share than late-comers into the marketplace with similar products or services. The drawbacks described above often arise to outweigh the benefits when the legal framework of the co-operative effort is either inappropriate to begin with, or was ill-conceived to suit the expectations of the parties.

Recommended Citation

David L. Hitchcock, Co-operative Development of Technology: Understanding the Risks and Creating Opportunities to Excel, 9 Computer L. Rev. & Tech. J. 233 (2004)