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on Intellectual Property Rights |
| By: | Cockburn, Iain M.; MacGarvie, Megan J.; Müller, Elisabeth |
| Abstract: | We examine the relationship between fragmented intellectual property (IP) rights and the innovative performance of firms, taking into consideration the role played by in-licensing of IP. We find that firms facing more fragmented IP landscapes have a higher probability of in-licensing. For firms with small patent portfolios we also find a positive association between fragmentation and licensing costs as a share of sales. We observe a negative relationship between IP fragmentation and innovative performance, but only for firms that engage in in-licensing. In contrast, greater IP fragmentation is associated with higher innovative performance for firms that do not in-license. Furthermore, the effects of fragmentation on innovation also appear to depend on the size of a firm’s patent portfolio. These results suggest that the effects of fragmentation of upstream IP rights are not uniform, and instead vary according to the characteristics of the downstream firm. -- |
| Keywords: | patent thickets,licensing,innovative performance |
| JEL: | O34 O31 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:08101r&r=ipr |
| By: | Saiz, J. Patricio (Departamento de Análisis Económico (Teoría e Historia Económica). Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) |
| Abstract: | From a long-term perspective, technological innovation could have come from local or domestic inventive and research activity, or from the transfer of foreign technology. In reality either option produces similar effects and often it was a combination of both which drove the historical acceleration of the rhythm of innovation and expansion of industry. This was fundamental for Great Britain and its early followers, and even more so for the latecomers and the underdeveloped countries. Spain, for example, suffered from scientific, technological and industrial backwardness which impeded the implementation of a national research and development infrastructure capable of generating competitive inventive activity. However, the national innovation system was designed, from the 18th century onwards, to favour the transfer of technology and human capital from abroad and thus establish the basis of modern economic growth and the process of industrialization. In this paper we will reflect on the design of the Spanish Innovation System, especially in one of its institutional aspects (the patent system), in order to understand the real role and function of a curios legal process the “patent of introduction”, which in practice promoted and permitted anyone to protect foreign third-person technologies in order to implement them locally, providing they were not already established. Although this legal practice represents a very clear declaration of intentions concerning the innovation policy and despite its existence in other patent systems in lagging countries, economic and technology historians have paid little or no attention to the subject. Therefore it is unclear how patents of introduction functioned and what consequences they had on the innovation and industrialization processes, especially in underdeveloped countries such as Spain, which, incredibly, maintained this practice until joining the European Union in 1986. We will attempt to shed light on how patents of introduction were established and how they evolved, the role they played in the promotion of innovation, who used them and how, and the real impact they had. The conclusions point out that, as with protectionism as a commercial policy, forcing national processes of innovation that take advantage of foreign inventions with or without respecting the original inventors rights –as generally occurs with the transfer of technology from abroad- could have positive consequences on the industrialization processes as well as helping lagging countries such as Spain to catch up with modern societies. |
| Keywords: | Patents of introduction; National innovation system; Spain; Technology transfer. |
| JEL: | N43 N44 N73 N74 O31 O34 O38 |
| Date: | 2009–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uam:wpapeh:201001&r=ipr |
| By: | Andrea Mantovani; Alireza Naghavi |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the consequences of parallel import (PI) on process innovation of firms heterogeneous in their production technology. In an international setting where foreign markets differ with respect to their intellectual property rights regime, a move by a technologically inferior firm to exploit a new unregulated market can result in imitation and PI. The impact of PI on innovation is determined by the degree of heterogeneity between firms and trade costs. Increasing trade costs shifts from the market share losses brought by PI from the more to the less productive firm. This induces the former to invest more in R&D. At this point, sales in the foreign market become a determinant of the R&D decision by the technologically inferior firm. For low levels of firm heterogeneity, PI increases output by this ?rm targeted for the unregulated market, hence increases its Innovation efforts. A tariff policy accompanied by opening borders to PI only increases welfare when the technological gap between the two firms are suffciently large. |
| Keywords: | Intellectual property rights; Parallel imports; Innovation; Trade costs; Welfare |
| JEL: | F12 F13 L11 |
| Date: | 2010–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mod:recent:038&r=ipr |
| By: | A. Mantovani; A. Naghavi |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the consequences of parallel import (PI) on process innovation of firms heterogeneous in their production technology. In an international setting where foreign markets differ with respect to their intellectual property rights regime, a move by a technologically inferior firm to exploit a new unregulated market can result in imitation and PI. The impact of PI on innovation is determined by the degree of heterogeneity between firms and trade costs. Increasing trade costs shifts from the market share losses brought by PI from the more to the less productive firm. This induces the former to invest more in R&D. At this point, sales in the foreign market become a determinant of the R&D decision by the technologically inferior firm. For low levels of firm heterogeneity, PI increases output by this firm targeted for the unregulated market, hence increases its Innovation efforts. A tariff policy accompanied by opening borders to PI only increases welfare when the technological gap between the two firms are sufficiently large. |
| JEL: | F12 F13 L11 |
| Date: | 2010–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:688&r=ipr |
| By: | Velu, C.; Iyer, S. |
| Abstract: | Do dominant or less dominant firms innovate more? Theoretically it has been shown that within an asymmetric mixed strategy game of a patent race, the less dominant firm invests more than the dominant firm. But the empirical data on patent races is divided. In this paper, we argue that the decisions that concern strategic choice in innovation may be influenced by expected relative returns. Our approach, which we call the returns-based beliefs approach, is based upon subjective probabilities. It combines a decision analytic solution concept and Luce’s (1959) probabilistic choice model. In particular, we show how the use of the returns-based beliefs approach provides support for the thesis that dominant firms invest more in R&D within an asymmetric mixed strategy game. Consequently, we argue that the returns-based beliefs approach is more in line with recent empirical studies of innovation. We also provide empirical evidence using UK R&D data across a range of industries from 2001-2006 that shows that firms’ spending on R&D is related more to their own profitability than that of their competitors, which is consistent with the returns-based beliefs approach. We discuss the managerial implications of our theoretical approach and the empirical findings. |
| Date: | 2010–01–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:1009&r=ipr |
| By: | Lawrence King; Osvaldo Gómez Martínez |
| Abstract: | <p> The legal protection of property rights is increasingly viewed as a crucial, if not the crucial, condition for economic growth and pro-poor development. Empirical support is generally based on cross-national correlations between measures of secure property rights and good development outcomes in the long-run. However, whether these associations hold in the short- and medium-run has, to our knowledge, not been studied. In this paper, we evaluate the relationship between the protection of property rights and growth using three property rights indices from the Heritage Foundation, Fraser Institute and World Economic Forum covering the experience of 162 countries between 1995 and 2005. While we find a strong correlation between the <i>level</i> of country property rights protections scores and economic growth, when we evaluate the <i>change</i> and <i>improvement</i> in country ranking scores of property rights, this positive association disappears. These findings could be interpreted as indicating either that there is i) no causal relationship between property rights and growth (at least in the short-run), or that ii) the property rights indices have poor validity. </p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";" lang="ES-MX"><br /></span></p> |
| Keywords: | Property rights; Development; Pro-poor |
| JEL: | O43 P14 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uma:periwp:wp216&r=ipr |