nep-ipr New Economics Papers
on Intellectual Property Rights
Issue of 2010‒05‒02
six papers chosen by
Roland Kirstein
Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg

  1. Venture capital and innovation at the firm level By Pere Arqué Castells
  2. Drivers of Academic Research and Patenting in India: Econometric Estimation of the Research Production Function By Amit Shovon Ray; Sabyasachi Saha
  3. Authorized Generic Entry prior to Patent Expiry: Reassessing Incentives for Independent Generic Entry By Appelt, Silvia
  4. Financing Creative Destruction By Samaniego, Roberto
  5. Competing engines of growth: innovation and standardization By Daron Acemoglu; Gino Gancia; Fabrizio Zilibotti
  6. The Academic Entrepreneur: Myth or Reality for Increased Regional Growth in Europe? By Katalin Erdõs; Attila Varga

  1. By: Pere Arqué Castells (Universitat de Barcelona & IEB)
    Abstract: This paper studies the relationship between venture capital (VC) and innovation using a self-collected dataset containing 119 innovative, VC-funded firms and 164,486 controls that operate in Spain. Probit model estimates indicate that firms that have applied for at least one patent are significantly more likely to obtain VC investments. However, when implementing a matching approach to correct for selectivity, no evidence is found of a significant impact of VC on firms’ patenting activity. Rather, evidence is found of a positive effect of VC on the sales growth of funded firms. These results suggest that, rather than having an impact on innovation activities, venture capitalists (VCs) focus on the commercialization of existing products. A finer breakdown by ownership and investment stage also provides evidence that private VCs and early stage investments are notably more effective at stimulating sales than public VCs and late stage investments respectively.
    Keywords: Venture capital, innovation, patents, matching estimator
    JEL: G24 O32
    Date: 2010
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ieb:wpaper:2010/4/doc2010-12&r=ipr
  2. By: Amit Shovon Ray; Sabyasachi Saha
    Abstract: In this paper we attempt to provide a comprehensive understanding of the drivers of academic research and patenting in India. Research inputs by a faculty member are considered to be an outcome of his/her own decision-making process, which in turn determine his/her research outputs. Exogenous parameters, like faculty background, faculty attitude, research sponsorship and institutional factors, are expected to influence both set of endogenous variables (research inputs and outputs). This production function is specified as a recursive simultaneous equation model and estimate the structural parameters using standard econometric methods. [ICRIER WP No. 247].
    Keywords: production function, academic research, India, patenting, inputs, faculty members, attitude, institutional factors, econometric methods, IPR, Bayh-Dole Act, patents, variables,
    Date: 2010
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:2476&r=ipr
  3. By: Appelt, Silvia
    Abstract: Patent holders frequently attempt to mitigate the loss of monopoly power by authorizing generic entry prior to patent expiry (early entry). Competition in off-patent pharmaceutical markets may be adversely affected if early entry substantially impairs the attractiveness of subsequent market entry. I examine generic entry decisions made in the course of recent patent expiries to quantify the impact of early entry on incentives for generic entry. Using unique micro data and accounting for the endogeneity of early entry, I estimate recursive bivariate probit models of entry. Drug markets' pre-entry revenues largely determine both independent generic entry and early entry decisions. Early entry in turn has no significant impact on the likelihood of generic entry. Original drug producers appear to authorize generic entry prior to loss of exclusivity primarily fueled by rent-seeking rather than strategic entry-deterrence motives.
    Keywords: Generic Entry; Early Entry; Anticompetitive Practices
    JEL: L41 I11 O34 C35
    Date: 2010–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lmu:muenec:11476&r=ipr
  4. By: Samaniego, Roberto
    Abstract: This paper uncovers evidence of s potentially important channel linking financial development to growth: the financing of innovations introduced by entrepreneurs. Using internationally comparable data on European countries, entry and exit in research-intensive industries are found to be disproportionately sensitive to the level of financial development. Furthermore, financial development is related to increased R&D spending. The results are robust to several different measures of financial development, and are supported by surveys of the sources of finance used by entrepreneurs. The evidence suggests that intellectual property rights provide the institutional underpinning for financial markets to direct funds towards innovative entrepreneurs.
    Keywords: Entry; exit; financial development; creative destruction; R&D intensity; entrepreneurship; intellectual property rights.
    JEL: G18 O16 L26 O33 O31 O14
    Date: 2009–12–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:22348&r=ipr
  5. By: Daron Acemoglu; Gino Gancia; Fabrizio Zilibotti
    Abstract: We study a dynamic general equilibrium model where innovation takes the form of the introduction new goods, whose production requires skilled workers. Innovation is followed by a costly process of standardization, whereby these new goods are adapted to be produced using unskilled labor. Our framework highlights a number of novel results. First, standardization is both an engine of growth and a potential barrier to it. As a result, growth in an inverse U-shaped function of the standardization rate (and of competition). Second, we characterize the growth and welfare maximizing speed of standardization. We show how optimal IPR policies affecting the cost of standardization vary with the skill-endowment, the elasticity of substitution between goods and other parameters. Third, we show that the interplay between innovation and standardization may lead to multiple equilibria. Finally, we study the implications of our model for the skill-premium and we illustrate novel reasons for linking North-South trade to intellectual property rights protection.
    Keywords: Growth, technology adoption, competition policy, intellectual property rights
    JEL: F43 O31 O33 O34
    Date: 2010–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zur:iewwpx:483&r=ipr
  6. By: Katalin Erdõs (Department of Economics and Regional Studies, University of Pécs); Attila Varga (Department of Economics and Regional Studies, University of Pécs)
    Abstract: Knowledge flows from universities to the regional economy can take different forms ranging from formal research collaborations to consultancy and informal personal connections. One of the knowledge communication channels drawing substantial interest of both researchers and regional policy makers is academic spin-off firm formation. According to the concept of the “academic entrepreneur” (Etzkowitz) university spin-off firm formation has grown naturally from the academic culture of the US where professors traditionally behave very much like entrepreneurs while setting up and maintaining research labs, hiring research assistants, “marketing” research results in conferences and publications or networking with colleagues and funding agencies. Spinning off a company is just a step forward from such entrepreneurial tasks of academics. Thus according to this concept academic motivations are main drivers in university spin-off firm formation in the US. Despite this challenging view the empirical literature pays relatively little attention to the particular “academic” features of university spin-offs and rarely considers the specificities of university entrepreneurship most notably the role of scientists as entrepreneurs. Empirical evidence suggests that Europe performs less successfully than the US in transferring knowledge from university labs to the regional economy via spin-off companies. One potential reason behind this difference is that institutions that determine the continental European research system hold back the emergence of academic entrepreneurs. Thus it is the main research question in our paper whether those specific “academic” drivers behind university spin-off firm formation are present at all in the continental European context. The related question is whether professional characteristics of the academics, their social capital, the norms of academia and the academic and business environment support or hinder these academic motivations? This paper is based on interviews carried out with university researchers who actively participate in firm formation in Hungary. Hungary is an excellent European case since the features of its university system are rooted in the continental (mainly German) tradition, but it also inherits some characteristics from the even more centralized socialist (soviet) tradition.
    Keywords: University, spin-off, academic entrepreneurship, regional university technology transfer
    JEL: I23 O18 O33 R11
    Date: 2009–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pec:wpaper:2009/7&r=ipr

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