Hybrid approaches to patent management: innovation in the cultivated meat industry

Patents are central to open innovation because they help companies protect and exchange knowledge. On one hand, patents can strengthen appropriability by granting exclusion rights that deter imitation, improve bargaining power, and support value capture. On the other hand, patents provide a foundation for licensing, technology transfer, and ecosystem building. This trade-off is especially acute in mission-oriented, technology-based sectors such as cultivated meat, where timely progress on complex technological challenges is critical to advancing urgent societal goals. Yet, existing patent governance models remain largely anchored in private value-capture and offer limited guidance on how prosocial commitments can be operationalized through patents without undermining investment incentives. This underscores the need to explore prosocial governance logics in patent management. Drawing on interviews and archival data, this study examines how patents are strategically governed to balance value capture with broader societal outcomes. We identify four emerging hybrid approaches to managing patents–Patent Salvaging, Altruistic Patent Sharing, Sharing Close Failures, and Benevolent Patent Extensions–that vary by degree of openness (closed, selective, open) and how benefits are distributed (industry-wide or for private stakeholders). By investigating the incentive logics and boundary conditions that make each approach viable, we extend open innovation and patent management research in mission-oriented sectors. We also provide practical guidance for companies and policymakers designing patent strategies that support both private returns and collective impact.