nep-ipr New Economics Papers
on Intellectual Property Rights
Issue of 2016‒08‒21
three papers chosen by
Giovanni Ramello
Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale “Amedeo Avogadro”

  1. Fighting Software Piracy: Some Global Conditional Policy Instruments By Asongu, Simplice A; Singh, Pritam; Le Roux, Sara
  2. The costs of using formal intellectual property rights: a survey on small innovative enterprises in Latin America By Ignacio L. De León; José Fernández Donoso
  3. Patentability, R&D direction, and cumulative innovation By Chen, Yongmin; Pan, Shiyuan; Zhang, Tianle

  1. By: Asongu, Simplice A; Singh, Pritam; Le Roux, Sara
    Abstract: This study examines the efficiency of tools for fighting software piracy in the conditional distributions of software piracy. Our paper examines software piracy in 99 countries for the period 1994-2010, using contemporary and non-contemporary quantile regressions. The intuition for modelling distributions contingent on existing levels of software piracy is that the effectiveness of tools against piracy may consistently decrease or increase simultaneously with increasing levels of software piracy. Hence, blanket policies against software piracy are unlikely to succeed unless they are contingent on initial levels of software piracy and tailored differently across countries with low, medium and high levels of software piracy. Our findings indicate that GDP per capita, research and development expenditure, main intellectual property laws, multilateral treaties, bilateral treaties, World Intellectual Property Organisation treaties, money supply and respect of the rule of law have negative effects on software piracy. Equitably distributed wealth reduces software piracy, and the tendency not to indulge in software piracy because of equitably distributed wealth increases with increasing software piracy levels. Hence, the negative degree of responsiveness of software piracy to changes in income levels is an increasing function of software piracy. Moreover the relationships between policy instruments and software piracy display various patterns, namely: U-shape, Kuznets-shape, S-shape and negative thresholds. A negative threshold represents negative estimates with increasing negative magnitude throughout the conditional distributions of software piracy. We also discuss the policy implications of our study.
    Keywords: Intellectual property rights; Panel data; Software piracy
    JEL: F42 K42 O34 O38 O57
    Date: 2016–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:73088&r=ipr
  2. By: Ignacio L. De León; José Fernández Donoso (School of Business and Economics, Universidad del Desarrollo)
    Abstract: This document analyzes the perception of small innovative enterprises (SIE) in Latin America towards the effectiveness of the legal protection of intellectual property rights (IPR). To analyze the costs of using IPR, we surveyed 352 SIEs from Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru. We found evidence of SIEs not knowing how the IP system works, and most of them considering that knowing how it works is not important for business performance. We find strong differences between countries in the need to hire legal services to apply for IPR. We also fin differences in the perception of the IP system efficiency, and the evaluations are not related to the country´s IPR enforcement (Park 2008). We also find differences in the perception of disadvantage to protect their IPR if imitated by a big firm. This difference is related to the country´s IPR enforcement
    Keywords: Intellectual property rights, intellectual capital, Innovation, Latin America, Small business, Entrepreneurship
    Date: 2016–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dsr:wpaper:37&r=ipr
  3. By: Chen, Yongmin; Pan, Shiyuan; Zhang, Tianle
    Abstract: We present a model of cumulative innovation where firms can conduct R&D in both a safe and a risky direction. Innovations in the risky direction produce quality improvements with higher expected sizes and variances. As patentability standards rise, an innovation in the risky direction is less likely to receive a patent that replaces the current technology, which decreases the static incentive for new entrants to conduct risky R&D, but increases their dynamic incentive because of the longer duration---and hence higher reward---for incumbency. These, together with a strategic substitution and a market structure effect, result in an inverted-U shape in the risky direction but a U shape in the safe direction for the relationship between R&D intensity and patentability standards. There exists a patentability standard that induces the efficient innovation direction, whereas R&D is biased towards (against) the risky direction under lower (higher) standards. The optimal patentability standard may distort the R&D direction to increase the industry innovation rate that is socially deficient.
    Keywords: cumulative innovation, patentability standards, R&D intensity, R&D direction, rate of innovation, innovation direction
    JEL: L1 O3
    Date: 2016–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:73180&r=ipr

This nep-ipr issue is ©2016 by Giovanni Ramello. It is provided as is without any express or implied warranty. It may be freely redistributed in whole or in part for any purpose. If distributed in part, please include this notice.
General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <director@nep.repec.org>. Put “NEP” in the subject, otherwise your mail may be rejected.
NEP’s infrastructure is sponsored by the School of Economics and Finance of Massey University in New Zealand.