nep-ipr New Economics Papers
on Intellectual Property Rights
Issue of 2016‒08‒07
four papers chosen by
Giovanni Ramello
Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale “Amedeo Avogadro”

  1. Finite Lifetimes, Patents' Length and Breadth, and Growth By Bharat Diwakar; Gilad Sorek
  2. Patent rights, product market reforms, and innovation By Aghion, Philippe; Howitt, Peter; Prantl, Susanne
  3. An Alternative Approach towards the Knowledge Production Function on a Regional Level - Applications for the USA and Russia By Jens K. Perret
  4. An Event Study of Patent Verdicts and Judicial Leakage By Bryan Engelhardt; Zachary Fernandes

  1. By: Bharat Diwakar; Gilad Sorek
    Abstract: We study the implications of patents breadth and duration (length) to growth and welfare, in an overlapping generations economy of finitely living agents. This demographic structure gives room to inter-generational trade in old patents and life-cycle saving motive, which prove to be relevant to the implications of different patent-policy dimensions. Patent breadth protection affects life-cycle saving and thereby aggregate investment, and the allocation investment between patents and physical capital. Patents duration affects also the stock of, and trade in, old patents. We show that, these unique characteristics of the OLG economy provide a case for incomplete patent breadth protection and finite patent duration, which are both growth and welfare enhancing. Furthermore, we show that the implications of patent policy to growth depend on whether the differentiated inputs are intermediate goods or investment goods. Our results contrast with the ones derived in previous studies that employed the same technologies and preferences in model economies of infinitely living agents. Hence, this work highlights the importance of the assumed demographic structure to the implications of patent policy.
    Keywords: IPR; Patent length; Patent Breadth; Growth; OLG
    JEL: L16 O30
    Date: 2016–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:abn:wpaper:auwp2016-08&r=ipr
  2. By: Aghion, Philippe; Howitt, Peter; Prantl, Susanne
    Abstract: In this paper, we provide empirical evidence to the effect that strong patent rights may complement competition-increasing product market reforms in fostering innovation. First, we find that the product market reform induced by the large-scale internal market reform of the European Union in 1992 enhanced, on average, innovative investments in manufacturing industries of countries with strong patent rights since the pre-sample period, but not so in industries of countries with weaker patent rights. Second, the positive response to the product market reform is more pronounced in industries where, in general, innovators tend to value patent protection higher than in other industries, except for the manufacture of electrical and optical equipment. The observed complementarity between competition and patent protection can be rationalized using a Schumpeterian growth model with step-by-step innovation. In such a model, better patent protection prolongs the period over which a firm that successfully escapes competition by innovating, actually enjoys higher monopoly rents from its technological upgrade.
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hrv:faseco:27755230&r=ipr
  3. By: Jens K. Perret (European Institute for International Economic Relations at the University of Wuppertal)
    Abstract: The present study picks up on the aspect of knowledge generation - a key part of every national innovation system - in the context of the USA and the Russian Federation. Following Fritsch and Slavtchev (2006) a knowledge production function can be used to account for the efficiency of an innovation systems. In detail this study provides a quantile regression estimation of the knowledge production function to account for a possible non-linear relationship between knowledge inputs and knowledge output. Using regional data for researchers, expenditures on R\& D and patent grants for the USA and the Russian Federation - motivated by the results of a kernel density estimation and transition matrices - a quantile regression is performed for a basic knowledge production function design; for Russia as well for an extended design. The results show that in both countries there exist groups of regions with smaller sized research systems that report significantly different dynamics and thus knowledge production functions than regions with larger sized research systems.
    Keywords: Russian Federation, USA, Innovation System, Knowledge Production Function, Knowledge Generation, Quantile Regression, Regional Economics
    JEL: P25 O31 O57
    Date: 2016–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bwu:schdps:sdp16003&r=ipr
  4. By: Bryan Engelhardt (College of Business, University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh); Zachary Fernandes (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System)
    Abstract: To check for the impartiality of the United States judicial system, we investigate whether judicial decisions are leaked prior to their public release. Utilizing an event study methodology, we test for leaked information by analyzing the effect of patent infringement verdicts on the stock prices of the firms involved before and after the public release of the verdict. We find evidence that at least some of the decisions are leaked prior to their public release.
    Keywords: event study, patent infringement, judicial leakage, insider trading, trial court, appellate court
    JEL: G14 K41
    Date: 2016–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hcx:wpaper:1602&r=ipr

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