nep-ipr New Economics Papers
on Intellectual Property Rights
Issue of 2012‒01‒03
seven papers chosen by
Roland Kirstein
Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg

  1. The Impact of Stronger Property Rights in Pharmaceuticals on Innovation in Developed and Developing Countries By Ming Liu; Sumner LaCroix
  2. Innovation versus Imitation: Intellectual Property Rights in a North-South Framework By Michael Wycherley
  3. From wires to partners: How the Internet has fostered R&D collaborations within firms By Chris CM Forman; Nicolas van Zeebroeck
  4. Value of invention, prolific inventor productivity and mobility : evidence from five countries, 1975-2002 By William Latham; Christian Le Bas; Dmitry Volodin
  5. A relational approach to knowledge spillovers in biotech. Network structures as drivers of inter-organizational citation patterns By Ron Boschma; Pierre-Alexandre Balland; Dieter Kogler
  6. Geocomputation and open source software: components and software stacks. By Bivand, Roger
  7. Individual and Organizational Aspects of University-Industry Relations in Nanotechnology: The Turkish Case By Berna Beyhan; M. Teoman Pamukçu; Erkan Erdil

  1. By: Ming Liu (Deptartment of Finance, Nankai University); Sumner LaCroix (Department of Economics, University of Hawaii)
    Abstract: An instrumental variable econometric model is specified to investigate how changes in a country’s patent protection for pharmaceutical innovations are related to patent awards from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to the country’s applicants. We use a new measure of patent protection for pharmaceutical innovations, the PIPP Index, to account for cross-country variation in pharmaceutical protection. Using GMM and other IV estimators, we find that stronger pharmaceutical patent protection in the applicant’s home country does not increase the number of U.S. pharmaceutical patents awarded to developed and developing country inventors.
    Keywords: Patent, pharmaceutical, GMM, instrument, innovation, TRIPS
    JEL: O1 O31 O34
    Date: 2011–11–23
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hai:wpaper:201116&r=ipr
  2. By: Michael Wycherley (Department of Economics, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland)
    Abstract: This paper examines differences in the optimal strength of intellectual property rights protection in a North-South endogenous growth model where it is possible for the South to engage in imitation, innovation or both. The possibility of Southern innovation implies sharp breaks in optimal policy at different stages of development in the South depending on whether it is optimal to induce innovation in the South. These sharp breaks imply strong policy conflict between the North and the South at intermediate levels of development but policy agreement elsewhere.
    Keywords: Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation, Economic Development
    JEL: O34 O31
    Date: 2011–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tcd:tcduee:tep2011&r=ipr
  3. By: Chris CM Forman; Nicolas van Zeebroeck
    Abstract: How did the diffusion of the Internet influence research collaborations within firms? We examine the relationship between business use of basic Internet technology and the size and geographic composition of industrial research teams between 1992 and 1998. We find robust empirical evidence that basic Internet adoption is associated with an increased likelihood of collaborative patents from geographically dispersed teams. On the contrary, we find no evidence of such a link between Internet adoption and within-location collaborative patents, nor do we find any evidence of a relationship between basic Internet and single-inventor patents. We interpret these results as evidence that adoption of basic Internet significantly reduced the coordination costs of research teams, but find little evidence that a drop in the costs of shared resource access significantly improved research productivity.
    Keywords: R&D organization, geography of innovation, internet adoption, IT
    JEL: O30 O32 L60
    Date: 2012
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulb:ulbeco:2013/105990&r=ipr
  4. By: William Latham (Department of Economics, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19711, USA); Christian Le Bas (Université de Lyon, Lyon, F-69007, France ; CNRS, GATE Lyon St Etienne,F-69130 Ecully, France); Dmitry Volodin (Department of Economics, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19711, USA)
    Abstract: The aim of this paper is to provide new insights into (1) the determinants of the value of inventions and (2) the role that mobility plays in the behavior of prolific inventors, whom we identify based on the number of patents exceeding a threshold of productivity. We examine mobility in two dimensions : from firm to firm (inter-firm) and from one technical field to another. We exploit data on patents filed by inventors from five countries (France, the UK, Germany, the US and Japan) in the US Patent and Trademark office during the period from 1975 to 2002. From our regressions we obtain a rich set of results. In particular we show that : (1) as predicted by evolutionary theory, inventor productivity is a positive determinant of invention value, (2) inter-firm mobility is a consistently positive determinant of productivity and (3) technological mobility is a negative determinant. The last implies that the more specialized an inventor is, the higher his productivity is.
    Keywords: prolific inventor, mobility, productivity, value of invention
    JEL: O31
    Date: 2011
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gat:wpaper:1133&r=ipr
  5. By: Ron Boschma; Pierre-Alexandre Balland; Dieter Kogler
    Abstract: In this paper, we analyze the geography of knowledge spillovers in biotech by investigating the way in which knowledge ties are organized. Following a relational account on knowledge spillovers, we depict knowledge networks as complex evolving structures that build on pre-existing knowledge and previously formed ties. In economic geography, there is still little understanding of how structural network forces (like preferential attachment and closure) shape the structure and formation of knowledge spillover networks in space. Our study investigates the knowledge spillover networks of biotech firms by means of inter-organizational citation patterns based on USPTO biotech patents in the years 2008-2010. Using a Stochastic Actor-Oriented Model (SAOM), we explain the driving forces behind the decision of actors to cite patents produced by other actors. Doing so, we address directly the endogenous forces of knowledge dynamics.
    Keywords: knowledge spillovers, network structure, patent citations, biotech, proximity
    JEL: B15 R11 R12
    Date: 2011–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1120&r=ipr
  6. By: Bivand, Roger (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration)
    Abstract: Geocomputation, with its necessary focus on software development and methods innovation, has enjoyed a close relationship with free and open source software communities. These extend from communities providing the numerical infrastructure for computation, such as BLAS (Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms),through language communities around Python, Java and others, to communities supporting spatial data handling, especially the projects of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. This chapter surveys the stack of software components available for geocomputation from these sources, looking in most detail at the R language and environment, and how OSGeo projects have been interfaced with it. In addition, attention will be paid to open development models and community participation in software development. Since free and open source geospatial software has also achieved a successively greater presence in proprietary software as computational platforms evolve, the chapter will close with some indications of future trends in software component stacks, using Terralib as an example.
    Keywords: Geocomputation; Open source software
    JEL: C80 C88 Q54 R14
    Date: 2011–12–15
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2011_023&r=ipr
  7. By: Berna Beyhan (TEKPOL, Science and Technology Policy Studies, Middle East Technical University); M. Teoman Pamukçu (TEKPOL, Science and Technology Policy Studies, Middle East Technical University); Erkan Erdil (Department of Economics, Middle East Technical University)
    Abstract: Emerging nanotechnologies bring a new challenge for developing countries to improve knowledge and technology transfer between universities and firms. In developing countries, weaker ties between academia and the industry seem to be one of the main barriers to the dissemination of nanotechnology innovations. This study aims to understand individual and organizational factors affecting university-industry interactions in emerging nanotechnologies in a developing country context, namely Turkey. For this study, 181 questionnaires were collected from a sample of nano-science and nanotechnology academics who are currently employed by Turkish universities. The results provide that informal / interpersonal and research-related interactions are the most common forms of relationship between academics and firms. On the other hand, the study provides a useful insight to understand how human and social capitals of university-scientists as well as organizational resources/ capabilities influence the formation of links between universities and the industry.
    Keywords: Nanotechnology, nanoscience, emerging technologies, technology transfer, university-industry relations, science and technology policies, probit model, disproportionate stratified sampling, emerging economies, Turkey.
    Date: 2011–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:met:stpswp:1106&r=ipr

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