Operational research models for green technology cross‐licensing with known carbon quota trading prices

Abstract Green finance contributes significantly to the openness and transparency of carbon quota trading prices, which is conducive to the development of green technology innovation. With known carbon quota trading prices, we construct game‐based operational research models to analyze fixed‐fee and mixed‐fee cross‐licensing strategies for green technologies between two competing firms under the cap‐and‐trade policy. We compare the equilibrium outcomes of no‐licensing, fixed‐fee, and mixed‐fee cross‐licensing strategies. The findings reveal that product pricing under the fixed‐fee cross‐licensing strategy is beneficial to consumers. The mixed‐fee cross‐licensing strategy is optimal in terms of firms' total profits. When the degree of product substitutions is large and the improvement in carbon emissions is small, firms are more inclined to the no‐licensing strategy. We further introduce the revenue‐sharing contract, which can extend the Pareto improvement domain and improve the performance of green technology cross‐licensing strategies.