產品創新秘密保護期之敏感度分析

Abstract

產品創新為我國廠商近代的重要競爭策略，「營業秘密」則為產品創新的重要保護態樣。決策模式中個別參數獨自變動如何影響最佳決策，容忍取向（tolerance approach）提供了有效且易用的決策方法。容忍取向評估個別參數獨自變動的幅度，找出值得維持最佳決策結構的臨界點。傳統上，產品創新的知識以「營業秘密」作為保護的研究主題，大都關注在法律面，鮮少同時研究管理面向。以這種營業秘密之創新產品製造上市，其競爭者將採取還原工程（reverse engineering）或獨自發掘（independent discovery）等手段爭奪市場利益。本研究建構產品創新秘密最佳保護期之決策問題，以容忍敏感度分析個別參數變動影響與臨界範圍，並探討其智慧財產權管理決策的含意。 本論文的主要貢獻：（a）在決策模式中同時考量創新產品品質與產銷量兩個決策變數於最佳化決策模型；（b）修正邊際變動成本為產品品質水準的二次函數；（c）推導最佳保護期敏感度分析之決策模式。

Product innovation is an important competitive strategy for firms in our country recently, and trade secret is an important protection type for this innovation. The tolerance approach was proposed as an effective and easy-to-use decision method to consider the effects of independent changes in selected parameters. This approach provides a tolerance within which selected parameters may vary from their estimated worth while still retain the same decision structure. Knowledge of innovation product is an important type of trade secret, but traditional studies about its protection focused on legal issue, and rarely on management. Trade secret produces a new product for sale, and the competitors may develop it by reverse engineering or independent discovery, and then enter this market to earn profits. This paper formulates an optimal protection horizon problem for product innovation secret, and uses tolerance sensitivity analysis to find its influences, the critical ranges of individual parameters, and discuss managerial implications of these models in intellectual property protection decision. Our contributions in this paper are threefold: (a) to consider quantities and qualities of production in decision models simultaneously, (b) to modify variable cost function in usual model by a quadratic function of qualities, and (c) to analysis the optimal protection horizon model with sensitivities analysis method.