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on Intellectual Property Rights |
| By: | Pascal Corbel (University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ), F-78000 Versailles, France); Christian Le Bas (Université de Lyon, Lyon, F-69003, France ; CNRS, GATE Lyon St Etienne,F-69130 Ecully, France) |
| Abstract: | Recent publications in the field of Intellectual Property (IP) have shown that the previous literature did not grasp how complex patents are. The goal of this paper is to present an overview of all identified functions of patents and of the main strategic implications of such a complex picture. We first survey the main patent functions : innovation protection, functions related to trade and finance, defensive roles, and patent as an input in the innovation process. We then define each function and analyse their main evolution trends in relation with the current environment. We finally identify the strategic implications of each function. We focus on the implications of the newly identified functions and on the interaction between the different functions. |
| Keywords: | Patent, Intellectual Property, Strategic Management, Functions, Motives to patent |
| JEL: | F12 F15 F18 Q28 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gat:wpaper:1106&r=ipr |
| By: | Thomas Jeitschko (Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Economics, Michigan State University); Nanyun Zhang (Department of Economics, Towson University) |
| Abstract: | The conventional wisdom is that the formation of patent pools is welfare enhancing when patents are complementary, since the pool avoids a double-marginalization problem associated with independent licensing. The focus of this paper is on (downstream) product development and commercialization on the basis of perfectly complementary patents. We consider development technologies that entail spillovers between rivals, and assume that nal demand products are imperfect substitutes. If pool formation either increases spillovers in development or decreases the degree of product dierentiation, pool formation can actually adversely aect overall welfare by reducing incentives towards product development and product market competition|even with perfectly complementary patents. This significantly modifies and possibly even negates the conventional wisdom for many settings. The paper provides insights into why patent pools are uncommon in science-based industries such as biotech, despite there being strong policy advocacy for them. |
| Keywords: | Patent Pools, Research and Development, Innovation, BioTechnology, Electronics. |
| JEL: | L1 L2 L4 L6 D2 D4 |
| Date: | 2011–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tow:wpaper:2011-02&r=ipr |
| By: | Mario Cimoli; Giovanni Dosi; Roberto Mazzoleni; Bhaven Sampat |
| Abstract: | An essential aspect of "catching up" by developing countries is the emulation of technological leaders and the rapid accumulation by individuals and organizations of the knowledge and capabilities needed in order to sustain processes of technical learning. The rates and patterns of development of such capabilities are fundamentally shaped by the opportunities that indigenous organizations have to enter and operate in particular markets and technology areas. However, knowledge accumulation is also influenced by the governance of intellectual property rights (IPRs). The purpose of this work - prepared for a volume of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University, Intellectual and Property Rights Taskforce - is to offer an assessment of such influences in the long term, beginning with the early episodes of industrialization all the way to the present regime. The historical record is indeed quite diverse and variegated. However if there is a robust historical fact, it is the laxity or sheer absence of intellectual property rights in nearly all instances of successful catching up. We begin by reviewing a few theoretical arguments that economists have formulated on the effects of a system of patent protection. We will then review the historical evidence on the roles of patents in economic development. Next we discuss the changes in the IPR regime that have taken place roughly over the last third of a century in the United States. The reason for focusing on the United States is that doing so will outline the broad template of patent policy reform that has been adopted by policy makers in many other countries as a result of a varying mix of external pressures, myopia, corruption and ideological blindness. The final part of this essay, explores the likely impact of harmonization of international patent laws - including TRIPS - on developing countries. |
| Keywords: | Intellectual Property Rights, Catching-up, Imitation, Development, TRIPS |
| Date: | 2011–02–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2011/06&r=ipr |
| By: | A. Blasco |
| Abstract: | Recent models of multi-stage R&D have shown that a system of weak intellectual property rights may lead to faster innovation by inducing firms to share intermediate technological knowledge. In this article I introduce a distinction between plain and sophisticated technological knowledge, which has not been noticed so far but plays a crucial role in determining how different appropriability rules affect the incentives to innovate. I argue that the positive effect of weak intellectual property regimes on the sharing of intermediate technological knowledge vanishes when technological knowledge is sophisticated, as is likely to be the case in many high tech industries. |
| JEL: | L10 O30 |
| Date: | 2011–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp733&r=ipr |
| By: | Kaz Miyagiwa; Huasheng Song; Hylke Vandenbussche |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of contingency trade policy in a multi-country oligopoly model with and without R&D opportunities. We show that firms benefit from unilateral protection but initiate antidumping (AD) only against the targets domiciled in substantially smaller countries. Also, AD filings are more likely when firms face R&D opportunities. These results are consistent with recent empirical findings, namely, (1) actions are mostly between industrial and developing countries, (2) developing countries use AD to retaliate against industrial countries, and (3) AD is concentrated in R&D-intensive industries. Interestingly, intellectual property rights violations in developing countries have no connection to AD filings. |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emo:wp2003:1009&r=ipr |
| By: | Erik Stam; Bart Nooteboom |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses the nature of entrepreneurship and its relation to innovation along a cycle in which exploration and exploration follow upon each other. We place the roles of entrepreneurship in innovation policy within this cycle of innovation. Different types of innovation along the cycle of innovation are realized with different forms of entrepreneurship, which are constrained or enabled by different legal institutions. One of the key roles of governments is to design, change or destruct institutions in order to improve societal welfare. The question is what governments should do in the context of innovation policy. Here, social scientists can make a contribution by providing insight into what entrepreneurship and innovation is (theories about these phenomena), and how institutions affect them in reality (empirical evidence about their effects). This requires social scientists to be engaged scholars and to provide new policy options as an honest broker between the academic world and the policy world. The key question of this paper is: How can policy best enable innovation based entrepreneurship? The answer is derived from looking at both theoretical tenets and empirical evidence using an institutional design perspective, which aims at providing arguments for the design, change and/or destruction of institutions, given the goals of the governments. We provide an overview of some (empirically tests of) institutions that enable or restrain particular types of entrepreneurship. Examples of these institutions are intellectual property rights and the Small Business Innovation Research program, employment protection, and non-compete covenants. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship, innovation, institutions, innovation policy |
| JEL: | E61 G38 H57 K29 L26 L53 M13 O12 O31 O33 O38 |
| Date: | 2011–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:use:tkiwps:1103&r=ipr |
| By: | Aoki, Shuhei |
| Abstract: | Why did the Japanese economy stagnate before World War II, how did it achieve rapid economic growth after the war, and why did it stagnate again after the 1970s? To answer these questions, I developed a two-country trade model with technology transfer, where rms in the two countries compete in a Bertrand fashion, where rms in a developed country (the U.S.) transfer technology to rms in a developing country (Japan) if it is protable to do so, and where the technology transfer is the engine of economic growth. In this model, among multiple equilibria, the equilibrium with low labor cost in Japan was chosen during the rapid growth period. As a result, the rms in the developed country transferred technology to the rms in the developing country, resulting in rapid growth. However, during the other periods, the equilibrium with high labor cost in Japan was chosen, which caused stagnation. The model is quantitatively consistent with the per capita GDP relative to the U.S., the purchasing power parity-exchange rate ratio, and to some degree, the swings in labor share of postwar Japan. |
| Keywords: | Japan's rapid economic growth; Licensing; Technology transfer; Undervaluation of yen. |
| JEL: | O11 O41 F43 |
| Date: | 2011–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:29235&r=ipr |