Abstract
"This paper examines the relationship between family ownership and patent use strategy using primary data from a patent survey, and patent and firm-level data from secondary sources. We find that family firms are less likely than non-family firms to license and more than non-family firms to internally commercialize their patents. Family firms' decision to license less is not driven by their lower patent quality or inefficient use of patents. Instead, it is due to their preference for patent uses that give them more control over values they can appropriate from their innovations. To this end, family firms leverage their managerial discretion to explore and seize internal patent commercialization opportunities by deviating from intended patent uses."