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on Intellectual Property Rights |
| By: | Tomás del Barrio-Castro (University of the Balearic Islands); José García-Quevedo (IEB, Universitat de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | In recent years various studies have examined the factors that may explain academic patents. Existing analyses have also underlined the substantial differences to be found in European countries in the institutional framework that defines property rights for academic patents. The objective of this study is to contribute to the empirical literature on the factors explaining academic patents and to determine whether the incentives that universities offer researchers contribute towards explaining the differences in academic patenting activity. The results of the econometric analysis for the Spanish universities point towards the conclusion that the principal factor determining the patents is funding of R&D while royalty incentives to researchers do not appear to be significant. |
| Keywords: | Patents, University, R&D |
| Date: | 2009–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:xrp:wpaper:xreap2009-14&r=ipr |
| By: | Aoki, Reiko; Schiff, Aaron |
| Abstract: | We examine the effect of collective rights organizations (CROs) on upstream innovation. CROs are established to facilitate downstream use, such as production and downstream innovation, of upstream intellectual property. We compare CROs with two alternative royalty redistribution rules, two different upstream innovation environments and two different anti-trust rules. Most CROs increase upstream R&D incentives by increasing licensing profit but this may lead to over-investment. We observe that when the market is ex-ante asymmetric (only one firm has ability to develop one of the technologies), unequal royalty distribution in favor of the one firm may be ex-post efficient but may result in under investment in the complementary technology. Thus in addition to balancing the trade-off between ex-ante (dynamic) efficiency and ex-post (static) efficiency as in the case of a single intellectual property, CROs must achieve the balance among members. |
| Keywords: | Intellectual property, patent licensing, collective rights organizations, anticommons, anti-trust, royalty |
| JEL: | L24 O31 O34 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:piecis:457&r=ipr |
| By: | Komulainen, Mari (National Board of Patents and Registration of Finland); Takalo, Tuomas (Bank of Finland and University of Jyväskylä) |
| Abstract: | We study whether and to what extent financial exchange innovations are in practice patentable in Europe. We find that exchange-related applications initially increased significantly after the State Street decision but subsequently decreased. The clear majority (65%) of applications come from the U.S. investment banks and exchanges themselves being among the most active innovators. But patents were not easly granted in response to these applications (only 3% of them led to valid patent). The high post-grant opposition rate (41%) for granted patents indicated that competitors tightly monitored each other’s patents. The evidence, as augmented with clinical case studies, supports the notion that, for an invention to pass the inventive step requirement for obtaining a European patent, it should have technical features for solving a sufficiently challenging technical problem. Our evidence suggests that patentability standards for financial methods have not weakened in Europe in the aftermath of the State Street decision and that the inventive step requirement constitutes a major obstacle for applicants to overcome in order to obtain a financial exchange patent in Europe. |
| Keywords: | finance patents; financial innovation; business method patents; patent policy; management of intellectual property in financial services |
| JEL: | G24 G28 K29 O32 O34 |
| Date: | 2009–09–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:bofrdp:2009_022&r=ipr |
| By: | Carliss Y. Baldwin (Harvard Business School, Finance Unit); Eric von Hippel (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we assess the economic viability of innovation by producers relative to two increasingly important alternative models: innovations by single user individuals or firms, and open collaborative innovation projects. We analyze the design costs and architectures and communication costs associated with each model. We conclude that innovation by individual users and also open collaborative innovation increasingly compete with - and may displace -producer innovation in many parts of the economy. We argue that a transition from producer innovation to open single user and open collaborative innovation is desirable in terms of social welfare, and so worthy of support by policymakers. |
| Date: | 2009–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbs:wpaper:10-038&r=ipr |
| By: | Saradindu Bhaduri; Hemant Kumar |
| Abstract: | Extrinsic motivations like intellectual property protections and fiscal incentives continue to occupy the centre stage in debates on innovation policies. Joseph Schumpeter had, however, argued that the motive to accumulate private property can only explain part of innovative activities. In his view, "the joy of creating, of getting things done" associated with the behavioural traits that "seek out difficulties…and takes delight in ventures" stand out as the most independent factor of behaviour in explaining the process of economic development, especially in early capitalist societies. Taking the case of 'grassroot' innovators in India, we re-examine the motivations behind innovative behaviour. We draw upon the literature on effectance motivation theory to construct operational indicators of extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. Interestingly, we find that pure extrinsic forms of motivation drive only a fraction of individual innovative behaviour. Also, importance of intrinsic motivation in guiding innovative behaviour is found to high when uncertainty is high. We accordingly draw a few policy implications. |
| Keywords: | Motivation, Grassroot Innovation, India Length 29 pages |
| Date: | 2009–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:evopap:2009-12&r=ipr |
| By: | J. Atsu Amegashie (Department of Economics,University of Guelph) |
| Abstract: | I consider a model in which an asset owner must decide how much to invest in his asset mindful of the fact that an encroacher’s valuation of the asset is increasing in the asset owner’s investment. Due to incomplete property rights, the encroacher and asset owner engage in a contest over the control of the asset after investment has taken place. A standard result is that the asset owner will underinvest in the asset relative to the first-best level of investment when property rights are complete. To check the robustness of this result, I extend the benchmark model by changing (i) the nature of competition over property rights, (ii) the information that the players have about each other, (iii) the duration of the interaction between the players, and (iv) the bargaining power of the encroacher. Contrary to recent results, I find that when the interaction between the asset owner and the encroacher is infinitely repeated and the encroacher has some bargaining power over the size of the transfer from the asset owner to him, then there is a cooperative equilibrium in which the asset owner finds it optimal to over-invest in the asset when property rights are incomplete relative to the first-best level of investment when property rights are complete. Overinvestment is used to induce cooperation. However, this result depends on the nature of transfers or the encroacher’s bargaining power. |
| Keywords: | contests, incomplete information, property rights, investment, transfers |
| JEL: | D72 D74 K42 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gue:guelph:2009-2.&r=ipr |