While research has paid attention to open innovation, we have witnessed a strong emphasis on the question of how firms can learn from patents and knowledge generated outside their organizational boundaries. In this article, we examine the way patents can be used as an input into the innovation process. To better comprehend the use of patents in this process, we focus through the lens of a leading global automotive company, which offer a particularly suitable context for such an investigation. Based on a case study, our findings lead to three main contributions: First, we propose a categorization of patent users into three groups: regular users, irregular users and non-users and, explain why patents are used or not used, in the innovation process. Second, we identify two main digital strategies that allow users to better manage and filter external patents. Third, we show, step by step, how to integrate external patents throughout the different stages of the open innovation process. Based on our findings, we then highlight specific policy implications that suggest a more holistic approach for firms intending to encourage the use of external patents. We conclude by outlining limitations of our work and proposing potential future research opportunities.
