Application of the Delayed Royalty Framework for Onshore Petroleum Investment in Nigeria

Nigeria uses the concessionary petroleum fiscal system for onshore investment in the country where the ownership of the hydrocarbon resources belongs to the contractor's. The government then gets her revenue through payment of royalties and taxes. A fixed royalty rate of 20% is specified for onshore petroleum investment in the country. This kind of royalty payment system is regressive in nature and affects the sustainability of E&P firms during period of low oil price. This research considered the incorporation of a delayed royalty framework into the concessionary petroleum fiscal system in Nigeria. Two economic models were built to evaluate upstream petroleum investment in Nigeria onshore environment using the spreadsheet modeling technique. The delayed royalty framework was incorporated into one of the model. The delay in royalty payment was made as a function of the time it takes the contractor to recoup his capital before payment of royalty and taxes. Oil price was varied in the model between $30-$90/bbl to see the impact of the delay in royalty payment on the sustainability of the investment under the delayed royalty framework. It was observed that the delayed royalty framework made the contractor to recoup his capital early during the life of the investment. It also increased the contractor's revenue which will help to increase the sustainability of the investment during period of low oil price.

IP Licensing Contracts in Italy ‒ Royalty Rate Determination and Dispute Resolution Clauses

The present work is aimed at exploring IP license agreements under Italian law, with a focus on trademark licensing in the fashion, cosmetics and perfumery sectors, as well as on patent and know-how licensing in the pharmaceuticals industry. In particular, we will address the issue of royalty rate determination and dispute resolution clauses, which constitute key elements of a license agreement. These clauses will be analyzed in light of the above-mentioned fields of interest, in order to show how IP contractual tools may vary, in consideration of a particular sector. Moreover, the article tries to combine the legal analysis with the economic implications for business and entrepreneurs. The fact is that license agreements are business-oriented contracts, the study of which is particularly useful for understanding how and to what extent an IP agreement may influence and even shape, in some cases, a whole sector, as we will see with, for example, the perfumery sector.

Professionalization of Online Gaming? Theoretical and Empirical Analysis for a Monopoly-Holding Platform

We analyze the private equilibrium of a two-sided market representing the online gaming industry under a principal-agent model. A monopoly-holding platform hires a manager to attract new members from both sides of the market while considering uncertainty on the adhesion of viewers and online gamers. First, we mathematically demonstrate that increasing cross-group network externalities can decrease the platform’s profit, which contradicts a canonical result from the field of two-sided markets. Moreover, knowing that the intermediary’s goal is aligned with the private interest of online gamers, machine learning models empirically show that the main theoretical outcome is observed in reality due to the presence of heterogeneous indirect network effects in online gaming activities. Second, we conclude that social welfare can be either harmed or improved for increasing cross-group network externalities, which means that the professionalization of online gaming may or may not be legitimized depending on the value taken by exogenous parameters related to the platform’s uncertainty on the number of agents that get on board, risk aversion of viewers, and royalty rate applied to online gamers. Finally, a discussion based on 2020 facts is provided and several policy recommendations are formulated to ensure the persistence of best regulatory practices.

A Saga of Intellectual Property Licensing: Investigating the Credibility of 25 Percent Rule

A healthy IP system creates opportunities and benefits for the industries, consumers, small businesses, governments, and the economy, including greater innovation, choice, competition, and jobs. Incentives to innovate, job creations, opportunities and revenue generation for governments make the environment interoperable and beneficial for all stakeholders. The IP created by industries and individuals can be licensed to others as a way of generating revenue. It is within this, already complex environment, where negotiating a fair royalty rate can become one of the most challenging tasks. It is here where the application of the 25 percent rule emerged as a rule of thumb, to determine royalty rates in most licensing transactions, specifically in patent licensing. In light of the above, this research study has looked into different issues relating to the credibility of the 25 percent rule after the Uniloc case. Moreover, this study tried to trace out and examine multiple issues, such as the validity of the grounds for rejecting the Rule, the criticism leveled against it, the applicability of the Daubert standards, limitations and exceptions to the Rule and other related issues that will answer the credibility of the 25 percent rule.

Brand equity protection and new geographic dynamics evidence from franchising in Brazil

The success of franchising contracts may depend on the market. Business format franchising is based on having a common brand name and concept within the chain developed by the franchisor. As intangible assets, all brands and related business concepts do not have the same profitability. Thus, we address the question of spatial organisation impact on franchise contracts managed by the parent brand in the Brazilian market. Within the traditional agency view, the presence of distant retail outlets leads the franchisor to choose a payment mechanism designed to provide incentives to the franchisee; that is, a low royalty rate associated with a high fixed fee. Based on a unique panel dataset, we provide evidence that spatial dispersion has the opposite impact in Brazil. This new insight suggests the need for brand assets protection, decisive in an emerging market context. Moreover, monetary provisions and alternative tools play a critical role in brand maintenance and support.

Optimal Operational Decision Making of Manufacturers and Authorized Remanufacturers with Patent Licensing under Carbon Cap-and-Trade Regulations

Constrained by production capacity and the pressure to reduce emissions, many original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) authorize third-party remanufacturers (TPRs) to remanufacture patented products. We investigate the operational decisions of OEMs and authorized TPRs under carbon cap-and-trade regulations in a two-echelon supply chain. We first formulate an operational decision model for OEMs before a TPR enters. Then, for the cases of centralized and decentralized decision making, we formulate an operational decision-making model for the TPR and, subsequently, establish one for the OEM after the TPR enters. We further analyze the effects of carbon emissions cap, trading price of carbon permits, yield rate, and consumer willingness to pay (WTP) on optimal decisions. Our results indicate: whether TPRs accept authorization remanufacturing depending on the ratio of carbon emissions cap to carbon emissions for producing per remanufactured product; royalty rate is negatively affected by trading price of carbon permits and per remanufactured product’ carbon emissions other than that for per new product, and can offset the threat caused by TPRs; the implementation of carbon cap-and-trade regulations causes OEMs to charge TPRs lower royalty rate; centralized decision making increases the total profit of the supply chain and delivers superior environmental benefits. As yield rate and WTP increase, the total profit increases, increasingly sensitive to WTP.

Analysis of IP Valuation on Technology Food Processing as Strategy Business in New Product Development

<p class="Abstract"><em>Valuation IP of IDS000001555 analysed the economic impact and to measure the financial benefits of the asset if implemented in a business. This patent is about technology that used to produce of Mangosteen peel nano-tea. This technology is to product nano particle with ball-mill method. This research used qualitative and quantitative methods with description analysis. By using the qualitative method, this research focused on scoring of the IP in a several aspects, while the quantitative method conducted by income approach used the Discounted Cash Flow method. The qualitative method showed the technology IDS000001555 had a high opportunity and low risk value. This patent also has the best marketing strategy by a licensing agreement. However, the quantitative method showed the technology IDS000001555 had 6.1% for royalty rate with value of NPV (Net Present Value) Rp 605,227,434. It was estimated that this patent will generate the turnover of about Rp 617,000,000 for 10 years of useful economic life.</em></p><p><em>Keywords: valuation IP, economic impact, qualitative and quantitative methods, royalty rate, turnover</em></p><p class="Abstract"><br /><br /></p>

Costs of inefficient regulation: Evidence from the Bakken

Efficient pollution regulation equalizes marginal abatement costs across sources. We study a new flaring regulation in North Dakota and document its efficiency. We attribute most of the observed flaring reductions at new wells in the state since late 2014 to the regulation. We construct firm-specific marginal abatement cost curves and find that the same quantity of flaring reductions could have been achieved at 44% lower cost by taxing flared gas instead of imposing firm-specific requirements. Taxing flared gas at the existing public lands royalty rate would achieve 99% of the flaring reductions at 46% lower cost.