What drives technology licenses to contain (non-)legally enforceable contracting?

Abstract

Previous work in fields such as marketing has documented that the ability to contractually govern exchanges is contingent on a potential to legally enforce contracts. However, some contractual governance is not legally enforceable. Casual observation, particularly in high-tech industries, also suggests that weaving or “braiding” legally enforceable contracting with non-legally enforceable contracting is a preferred practice. An important, but hitherto unanswered, question is why parties devise such “braided” contracts. We draw on the legal concept of “definiteness” to delineate legally enforceable from non-legally enforceable contracting (highly unlikely to be enforced through courts) and we..