Intellectual property and architecture : how architecture influences intellectual property lock-in

Abstract

Intellectual property lock-in is a wicked problem particularly pervasive under monopsony market structures, such as the Department of Defense (DoD). However, little research exists on the mechanisms of action that induce intellectual property lock-in. This work postulates the conjuncture of architecture and intellectual property is one such mechanism of action and erects a research methodology to investigate this link. This dissertation began with a review of literature, which revealed more research is needed into basic trends or estimates of magnitude for intellectual property lock-in. To quantitatively frame the magnitude of the problem an investigation was conducted into all DoD contracts for the last eight fiscal years to establish bounds. These results were used to formulate a conceptual model of the problem and suggest the concept of intellectual property architecture, which is the conjuncture of architecture and intellectual property. To investigate links between intellectual property architecture and lock-in, an intermediate-N fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis research approach was formulated and executed using 14 DoD software cases representing over 34 million lines of code. The model used three input conditions: high quality technical architecture, accessible intellectual property architecture, and unlimited rights to study the avoidance of lock-in. The fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis concluded intellectual property architecture or unlimited rights were quasi-necessary conditions for the avoidance of lock-in. Additionally the model yielded both a five condition conservative expression and two condition parsimonious expression for sufficient conditions. From those expressions, this research concludes three direct findings. First, intellectual property architecture is an empirically supported mechanism of action for the avoidance of lock-in. Implying, intellectual property architecture, absent any other explanatory conditions, is sufficient to avoid lock-in. Second, the research herein finds evidence to support a novel taxonomy of intellectual property architectures. Allowing practitioners to understand potential trade-offs between architecture and intellectual property lock-in. Third, intellectual property architecture or unlimited rights is a theoretically supported expression for the avoidance of lock-in. This finding implies that as few as two conditions are required to understand whether a case may, or may not, avoid lock-in.