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on Innovation |
| By: | Guellec, Dominique; van Pottelsberghe, Bruno; van Zeebroeck, Nicolas |
| Abstract: | The joint increase in the number and size of patents filed around the world puts the patent system under pressure. This paper analyses the sources of this surge in number of claims and pages of patent applications at the EPO. Four hypotheses are scrutinized: the diffusion of national drafting practices, the increasing complexity of inventions, the emergence of new sectors, and new patenting strategies. The results show that the increasing voluminosity is explained by all these hypotheses and suggest that the diffusion of the US model through the PCT is one of the major factors driving the size of EPO patent applications. |
| Keywords: | claim drafting; IP strategy; patent applications; patent systems; patent voluminosity |
| JEL: | O31 O34 O50 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5971&r=ino |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu; Ufuk Akcigit |
| Abstract: | What form of intellectual property rights (IPR) policy contributes to economic growth? Should technological followers be able to license the products of technological leaders? Should a company with a large technological lead receive the same IPR protection as a company with a more limited lead? We develop a general equilibrium framework to investigate these questions. The economy consists of many industries and firms engaged in cumulative (step-by-step) innovation. IPR policy regulates whether followers in an industry can copy the technology of the leader and also how much they have to pay to license past innovations. With full patent protection, followers can catch up to the leader in their industry either by making the same innovation(s) themselves or by making some pre-specified payments to the technological leaders. We prove the existence of a steady-state equilibrium and characterize some of its properties. We then quantitatively investigate the implications of different types of IPR policy on the equilibrium growth rate. The two major results of this exercise are as follows. First, the growth rate in the standard models used in the (growth) literature can be improved significantly by introducing a simple form of licensing. Second, we show that full patent protection is not optimal from the viewpoint of maximizing the growth rate of the economy and that the growth-maximizing policy involves state-dependent IPR protection, providing greater protection to technological leaders that are further ahead than those that are close to their followers. This form of the growth-maximizing policy is a result of the "trickle-down" effect, which implies that providing greater protection to firms that are further ahead of their followers than a certain threshold increases the R&D incentives also for all technological leaders that are less advanced than this threshold. |
| JEL: | L16 O31 O34 O41 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12775&r=ino |
| By: | Archontopoulos, Eugenio; Guellec, Dominique; Stevnsborg, Niels; van Pottelsberghe, Bruno; van Zeebroeck, Nicolas |
| Abstract: | The joint increase in the number and size of patents filed around the world puts patent systems under pressure. This paper addresses issues in measuring the voluminosity of patent applications and highlights patterns in its evolution. The results - based on a 2 million EPO applications database - show that the average size of applications has doubled over the past 20 years and that it is mainly associated with PCT applications having a US priority. Voluminosity indicators are also influenced by geographical origins and technological areas and strongly impact the workload of the EPO, justifying the need for regulatory and policy actions. |
| Keywords: | patent applications; patent drafting; patent statistics; patent systems; patent voluminosity; workload |
| JEL: | O31 O34 O50 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5970&r=ino |
| By: | Tanya Araujo; R. Vilela Mendes |
| Keywords: | agent-based models, innovation, artificial societies |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ise:isegwp:wp312006&r=ino |
| By: | G. Buenstorf; D. Fornahl |
| Abstract: | This article studies entrepreneurial activities emerging out of one of Germany’s most prominent dot.com firms: Intershop, a maker of e-commerce software. We show that Intershop spawned at least 30 spin-offs. The majority entered locally, giving rise to a small but growing software cluster and counteracting the job losses accompanying the parent firm’s drastic downsizing after 2000. We trace the knowledge transfer from Intershop to the spin-offs and relate it to recent theorizing on the spin-off process as well as spin-off-based cluster formation. The Intershop case suggests that temporarily successful dot.coms could exert lasting effects on regional development. Length 30 pages |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:evopap:2006-20&r=ino |
| By: | Naghavi, Alireza; Ottaviano, Gianmarco I P |
| Abstract: | We propose an endogenous growth model with offshoring to investigate its effects on product innovation and growth in the country of origin. Offshoring is associated with reduced feedback from offshored plants to domestic labs as well as coordination problems between the offshored and domestic divisions of firms. Production and transport cost parameters affect the static decision to relocate plants but not R&D. Hence, offshoring may be chosen by firms when it damages the growth rate of their countries of origin. In particular, if offshoring reduces the feedback from plants to labs, it is likely to bring dynamic losses when the countries of origin are large, especially in sectors in which R&D is cheap and product differentiation is strong. It is also likely to slow growth in sectors in which contractual incompleteness gives a strong bargaining power to offshored divisions in intra-firm transactions. |
| Keywords: | growth; incomplete contracts; innovation; offshoring |
| JEL: | F12 F23 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6008&r=ino |
| By: | Schmidt, Klaus M. |
| Abstract: | In this paper we investigate the pricing incentives of IP holders and compare the equilibrium royalty rates charged by vertically integrated IP holders with those of non- integrated IP holders. We show that under many circumstances non-integrated companies are likely to charge lower royalties than their vertically integrated counterparts. The results of this paper are of special relevance for the analysis of competition in CDMA and WCDMA technology licensing, where some IP holders are not vertically integrated into handset and infrastructure manufacturing, while others are. |
| Keywords: | complementary patents; IP rights; licensing; vertical integration |
| JEL: | D43 L15 L41 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5987&r=ino |
| By: | Fiorenza BELUSSI; Luciano PILOTTI; Silvia Rita SEDITA |
| Abstract: | The work offers an integrated view on how knowledge is developed in localised systems of specialised firms (industrial districts - IDs), through informal social networks (communities of practice - CoPs), and firms networks, in an osmotic process between the internal to the district knowledge and the external to the district knowledge. Contrary to the Marshallian consolidated tradition, we describe the functioning of the modern industrial district emphasising not just the role of the local “industrial atmosphereâ€, but the modern aspect of “learning at the boundariesâ€, where local actors mix sources of knowledge located inside the district (exploitation of local resources) with external sources (exploration of global knowledge). Our empirical work, based on the analysis of three Italian industrial districts, shows that, in relation to the aspect of exploitation of local resources, the investment (both direct and indirect) of firms in augmenting their capabilities is juxtaposed to the activity organised by the district meta-organisers of cultivating local resources; furthermore, in relation to the exploration of global knowledge, internal/external switchers allow the exploration of global knowledge flows. It is a process that combines forms of localised learning with learning at the boundaries, through the access to pipelines (FDI, firms networks, distant KIBS) and boundary spanning actors (external CoPs). |
| Keywords: | Industrial Districts, Learning, Communities of Practice, Networks |
| JEL: | D83 M54 R12 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mil:wpdepa:2006-40&r=ino |
| By: | Franco Malerba; Richard Nelson; Luigi Orsenigo; Sidney Winter |
| Abstract: | In this paper we present a history-friendly model of the changing vertical scope of computer firms during the evolution of the computer and semiconductor industries. The model is "history friendly", in that it attempts at replicating some basic, stylized qualitative features of the evolution of vertical integration on the basis of the causal mechanisms and processes which we believe can explain the history. The specific question addressed in the model is set in the context of dynamic and uncertain technological and market environments, characterized by periods of technological revolutions punctuating periods of relative technological stability and smooth technical progress. The model illustrates how the patterns of vertical integration and specialization in the computer industry change as a function of the evolving levels and distribution of firms’ capabilities over time and how they depend on the co-evolution of the upstream and downstream sectors. Specific conditions in each of these markets - the size of the external market, the magnitude of the technological discontinuities, the lock-in effects in demand - exert critical effects and feedbacks on market structure and on the vertical scope of firms as time goes by. Length 32 pages |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:evopap:2006-19&r=ino |
| By: | Mahima Puri (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Rela); Anjali Varma (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Rela) |
| Date: | 2005–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:158&r=ino |
| By: | Samir R. Gandhi (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations) |
| Date: | 2006–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:181&r=ino |
| By: | Galor, Oded; Michalopoulos, Stelios |
| Abstract: | This research suggests that the evolution of entrepreneurial spirit played a significant role in the process of economic development and the evolution of inequality within and across societies. The study argues that entrepreneurial spirit evolved non-monotonically in the course of human history. In early stages of development, the rise in income generated an evolutionary advantage to entrepreneurial, growth promoting traits and their increased representation accelerated the pace of technological advancements and the process of economic development. Natural selection therefore had magnified growth promoting activities in relatively wealthier economies as well as within the upper segments of societies, enlarging the income gap within as well as across societies. In mature stages of development, however, non-entrepreneurial individuals gained an evolutionary advantage, diminishing the growth potential of advanced economies and contributing to the convergence of the intermediate level economies to the advanced ones. |
| Keywords: | evolution; growth; natural Selection; risk Aversion; technological progress |
| JEL: | J11 J13 O11 O14 O33 O40 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6022&r=ino |
| By: | Enrico Santarelli (University of Bologna, Max Planck Institute of Economics Jena, ENCORE Amsterdam, and IZA Bonn); Marco Vivarelli (Università Cattolica Piacenza, CSGR Warwick, Max Planck Institute of Economics Jena, and IZA Bonn) |
| Abstract: | This survey paper aims at critically discussing the recent literature on firm formation and survival and the growth of new-born firms. The basic purpose is to single out the microeconomic entrepreneurial foundations of industrial dynamics (entry and exit) and to characterise the founder’s ex-ante features in terms of likely ex-post business performance. The main conclusion is that entry of new firms is heterogeneous with innovative entrepreneurs being found together with passive followers, over-optimist gamblers and even escapees from unemployment. Since founders are heterogeneous and may make "entry mistakes", policy incentives should be highly selective, favouring nascent entrepreneurs endowed with progressive motivation and promising predictors of better business performance. This would lead to the least distortion in the post-entry market selection of efficient entrepreneurs. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship, new firm, survival, post-entry performance |
| JEL: | L10 M13 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2475&r=ino |
| By: | Ana Aizcorbe; Stephen D. Oliner; Daniel E. Sichel |
| Abstract: | This paper examines three questions motivated by previous research on semiconductors and productivity growth: Why did semiconductor prices fall so rapidly in the second half of the 1990s, why has the rate of price decline slowed since 2001, and to what extent are these price swings associated with changes in the rate of advance in semiconductor technology? We show that the price swings are statistically significant and that they reflect changes in both price-cost markups and cost trends. Further analysis indicates that the shift to faster cost declines in the mid-1990s likely corresponded to a speed-up in the pace of advance in semiconductor technology; however, the slower cost declines since 2001 appear not to have been mirrored by a deceleration in technology. Consequently, researchers should be cautious about associating price or cost movements for semiconductors with changes in the pace of underlying technology even over moderately long periods. |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2006-44&r=ino |
| By: | Mahima Puri (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations); Anjali Varma (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations) |
| Date: | 2005–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:166&r=ino |