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on Intellectual Property Rights |
| By: | Antonio Della Malva; Francesco Lissoni; Patrick Llerena |
| Abstract: | Recent empirical work in the field of university-industry technology transfer has stressed the importance of IPR-related reforms and university patenting has major forces behind the success of US high-tech industry. European policy-makers have been tempted to explain the poorer technological performance of their countries with the lower propensity of their academic institutions to get engaged in patenting and commercializing their research results. As a consequence, a number of measures have been taken to promote academic awareness of IPRs, as part of more comprehensive policies in favour of academic commercialization and entrepreneurship. This paper explores university patenting, and the related policies, in France. We provide evidence that university patenting in that countries has been underestimated by policy-makers’ perceptions: French academic scientists are in fact responsible for no less than 3% of patents by French inventors at the European Patent Office. However, only 10% of academic-invented patents are owned by domestic universities, with the remainder assigned both to firms and to Public Research Organizations (PROs). We then explore the impact of the Innovation Act, passed in France in 1999. We find that the Act has significantly increased the likelihood an academic patent to be assigned to a university rather than to a business company. We also find, that the opening of a technology transfer office in a university appears to have a stronger and more significant impact than the Act on the decision of universities to retain IPRs over their scientists’ discoveries. |
| JEL: | L31 O31 O34 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2008-09&r=ipr |
| By: | Sandra Phlippen (Erasmus University Rotterdam); An Vermeersch (McKinsey and Company) |
| Abstract: | This study analyses 1400 research projects of the top 20 R&D-spending pharmaceuticals to identify the determinants of successful research projects. We provide clear evidence that externally sourced projects and projects involving biotechnologies perform better than internal projects and chemical projects, respectively. Controlling for these effects, we find that big pharma should either build a critical mass of disease area knowledge or diversify projects over different DA’s in order to obtain higher success probabilities. Projects in which a firm has built a critical mass of disease knowledge (through at least 10 projects per DA) are significantly more likely to reach clinical testing. Moreover, within large disease areas, the success probabilities of internal projects increases when a few (less than 20%) externally sourced projects are involved. We interpret this finding as knowledge spillovers from external to internal projects, as the limited number of external projects enables the same people to be involved in both external and internal research projects and apply externally generated knowledge internally. |
| Keywords: | research strategies; pharmaceutical industry; innovation; external collaborations; make-or-buy |
| JEL: | L65 L25 L21 D21 D83 |
| Date: | 2008–03–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20080022&r=ipr |
| By: | Gavin C. Reid; Vandana Ujjual |
| Abstract: | This paper reports on new primary source evidence and analysis on high technology clusters in Scotland. It focuses on the following sectors: software, life sciences, microelectronics, optoelectronics, and digital media. Evidence on a postal and e-mailed questionnaire is presented and discussed under the headings of: performance, resources, collaboration & cooperation, embeddedness, and innovation. The sampled firms are characterised as being small (viz. micro-firms and SMEs), knowledge intensive (all graduate staff), research intensive (average spend on R&D three times turnover), and internationalised (mainly selling to markets beyond Europe). Preliminary statistical evidence is presented on Gibrat’s Law (independence of growth and size) and the Schumpeterian Hypothesis (scale economies in R&D). Estimates suggest a short-run equilibrium size of just 100 employees, but a long-run equilibrium size of 1000 employees. Further, to achieve the Schumpeterian effect (of marked scale economies in R&D), estimates suggest that firms have to grow to very much larger sizes of beyond 3,000 employees. We argue that the principal way of achieving the latter scale may need to be by takeovers and mergers, rather than by internally driven growth |
| Keywords: | High technology, Scottish firms, Gibrat’s Law, the Schumpeterian Hypothesis. |
| JEL: | O18 O31 O34 O38 |
| Date: | 2008–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:san:crieff:0804&r=ipr |
| By: | Kilponen , Juha (Bank of Finland Research); Viren, Matti (Bank of Finland Research) |
| Abstract: | We estimate a standard production function with a new cross-country data set on business sector production, wages and R&D investment for a selection of 14 OECD countries including the United States. The data sample covers the years 1960–2004. The data suggest that growth differences can largely be explained by capital deepening and an ability to produce new technology in the form of new patents. The importance of patents is magnified by the openness of the economy. We find some evidence of increasing elasticity of substitution over time, all though the results are sensitive to assumptions on the nature of technological progress. |
| Keywords: | growth; R&D; production function; patents |
| JEL: | E10 O40 O43 |
| Date: | 2008–05–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:bofrdp:2008_013&r=ipr |
| By: | Philippe Aghion; Philippe Askenazy; Nicolas Berman; Gilbert Cette; Laurent Eymard |
| Abstract: | We use a French firm-level data set containing 13,000 firms over the period 1993-2004 to analyze the relationship between credit constraints and firms' R&D behavior over the business cycle. Our main results can be summarized as follows: (i) the share of R&D investment over total investment is countercyclical without credit constraints, but it becomes less countercyclical as firms face tighter credit constraints; (ii) this result is magnified for firms in sectors that depend more heavily upon external finance, or that are characterized by a low degree of asset tangibility; (iii) in more credit constrained firms, R&D investment share plummets during recessions but does not increase proportionally during upturns; (iv) average R&D investment and productivity growth are more negatively correlated with sales volatility in more credit constrained firms. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pse:psecon:2008-26&r=ipr |
| By: | Evers, Hans-Dieter |
| Abstract: | With globalisation and knowledge-based production, firms may cooperate on a global scale, outsource parts of their administrative or productive units and negate location altogether. The extremely low transaction costs of data, information and knowledge seem to invalidate the theory of agglomeration and the spatial clustering of firms, going back to the classical work by Alfred Weber (1868-1958) and Alfred Marshall (1842-1924), who emphasized the microeconomic benefits of industrial collocation. This paper will argue against this view and show why the growth of knowledge societies will rather increase than decrease the relevance of location by creating knowledge clusters and knowledge hubs. A knowledge cluster is a local innovation system organized around universities, research institutions and firms which successfully drive innovations and create new industries. Knowledge hubs are localities with high internal and external networking and knowledge sharing capabilities. Both form a new knowledge architecture within an epistemic landscape of knowledge creation and dissemination, structured by knowledge gaps and areas of low knowledge intensity. The paper will focus on the internal dynamics of knowledge clusters and knowledge hubs and show why clustering takes place despite globalisation and the rapid growth of ICT. The basic argument that firms and their delivery chains attempt to reduce transport (transaction) costs by choosing the same location is still valid for most industrial economies, but knowledge hubs have different dynamics relating to externalities produced from knowledge sharing and research and development outputs. The paper draws on empirical data derived from ongoing research in the Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University and in the Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn, supported by the German Aeronautics and Space Agency (DLR). |
| Keywords: | knowledge; knowledge and development; industrial agglomeration; knowledge hub; cluster; space |
| JEL: | D21 D23 D8 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:8778&r=ipr |