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on Intellectual Property Rights |
| By: | Carlos J. POnce |
| Abstract: | It is an important concern that innovators by waiving their patent rights might obstruct the disclosure of knowledge and therefore retard progress. This paper explores this concern by using a simple model of two innovators who must decide sequentially whether to protect an innovation with limited patent rights. Two features are crucial to the disclosure decision. First: the second inventor may use his valid patent right to exclude the first inventor from using a secret invention. Second: when waiving her patent right, the first inventor may disclose her knowledge outside of a patent. Disclosure informs the Patent Office and courts that related inventions from later inventors may lack novelty and hence should not be protected by valid patent rights. This paper shows that when the first inventor chooses not to patent the innovation, the amount of disclosure is related to the intellectual property choices in a paradoxical way: the amount of disclosure will be ‘large’ (‘small’) when the second inventor chooses secrecy (patenting) to protect the innovation too. |
| Date: | 2007–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:werepe:we077241&r=ipr |
| By: | Jinyoung Kim (Department of Economics, Korea University); Sangjoon John Lee (Alfred University); Gerald Marschke (University at Albany and IZA) |
| Abstract: | We describe the construction of a panel data set from the U.S. patent data that contains measures of inventors?life-cycle R&D productivity--patents and patent citations. We match the data set to information on the U.S. pharmaceutical and semiconductor firms for whom they work. In this paper we use these data to examine the role of research personnel as a pathway for the diffusion of ideas from foreign countries to U.S. innovators. In particular, we find in recent years an increase in the extent that U.S. innovating firms collaborate with or employ researchers with foreign experience. This increase appears to work primarily through an increase in U.S. firms?employment of foreign-residing researchers; the fraction of research-active U.S. residents with foreign research experience appears to be falling, suggesting that U.S. pharmaceutical and semiconductor firms are increasingly locating operations in foreign countries to employ such researchers, as opposed to such researchers immigrating to the U.S. to work. In addition, we investigate which U.S. firms conducting R&D build upon innovations originating abroad. We find that employing or collaborating with researchers who have research experience abroad seems to facilitate the use of output of non-U.S. R&D. We also find that in the semiconductor industry smaller and older firms, and in the pharmaceutical industry, younger firms are more likely to access foreign R&D output. |
| Keywords: | Innovation; Technology spillovers |
| JEL: | J62 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iek:wpaper:0706&r=ipr |
| By: | Jinyoung Kim (Department of Economics, Korea University); Sangjoon John Lee (Alfred University); Gerald Marschke (University at Albany and IZA) |
| Abstract: | It has long been recognized that worker wages and possibly productivity are higher in large firms. Moreover, at least since Schumpeter (1942) economists have been interested in the relative efficiency of large firms in the research and development enterprise. This paper uses longitudinal worker-firm-matched data to examine the relationship between the productivity of workers specifically engaged in innovation and firm size in the pharmaceutical and semiconductor industries. In both industries, we find that inventors?productivity increases with firm size. This result holds across different specifications and even after controlling for inventors?experience, education, the quality of other inventors in the firm, and other firm characteristics. We find evidence in the pharmaceutical industry that this is partly accounted for by differences between how large and small firms organize R&D activities. |
| Keywords: | Patents, Innovation, Labor productivity, Research, Firm size |
| JEL: | O30 O32 O34 J21 J24 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iek:wpaper:0708&r=ipr |
| By: | Uwe Cantner (Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, School of Economics and Business Administration, Chair of Microeconomics); Kristin Joel (Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, School of Economics and Business Administration, Chair of Microeconomics) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of Knowledge Management (KM) for the innovation success of firms. It is assumed that the functional chains of KM lead directly and indirectly to more innovative success via enhancing the recombination of internal and external knowledge assets. To analyse the embedding of KM in a firm's internal system of innovation we establish a structural equation model. We capture KM as latent concept and trace different functional chains by which KM impacts. Using data on KM and innovation success of 351 German firms of the manufacturing sector and knowledge-intensive services located in Thuringia and Hesse, our findings confirm the (dynamic) capability function of KM, which leads via improving exploitation of internal and external innovation assets to more innovation success. |
| Keywords: | Knowledge management, innovation, absorptive capacity, resource-based view, structural equation modelling |
| JEL: | O32 D21 C3 |
| Date: | 2007–11–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2007-080&r=ipr |
| By: | Maria Daskalakis (Department of Economics, University of Kassel); Martina Kauffeld-Monz (Department of Economics, University of Kassel) |
| Abstract: | Researchers in the field of innovation networks have acknowledged the important role knowledge and interaction play for the emergence of innovation. However, not much research has been done to investigate the behavioural dynamics necessary for the success of innovation networks. Our article deals with this issue in a threefold manner: we combine a theoretical analysis with an empirical validation and set up a multi-agent system based on both, simulating the behavioural dynamic of collaborative R&D. With regard to the theoretical foundation, the cognitive foundations of knowledge generation under bounded rationality are conceptualized. This is linked to a discussion about the role trust plays in the course of economic interaction. Trust itself proves to be a relevant mode of economic (inter)action which enables agents to overcome social dilemmas that might arise in the process of collaborative R&D. For empirical validation, a unique data set is used (23 German innovation networks, containing about 600 agents). Results of the analyses highlight the dynamics and interdependence of knowledge generation and trust as well as the sources of trust building in terms of three different components (generalised trust, specific trust, and institutional trust). The multi-agent system comprises the theoretical and empirical findings, e.g. in incorporating heterogeneity with regard to adaptive capacity, reciprocity and the tolerance of non-reciprocal behaviour. The results give evidence of the (changing) relevance of trust in the course of collaborative R&D. The success of collaborative R&D is determined through a co-evolution of individual and interactive processes of knowledge transformation und trust building. |
| Keywords: | Regional Innovation System, Innovation Networks, Behavioral Economics, Trust, Knowledge Transfer. |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kas:poabec:2007-4&r=ipr |
| By: | Catherine Tucker (MIT Sloan); Amalia Miller (Department of Economics, University of Virginia) |
| Abstract: | Some policymakers argue that consumers need legal protection of their privacy before they adopt interactive technologies. Others contend that privacy regulations impose costs that deter adoption. We contribute to this growing debate by quantifying the effect of state privacy regulation on the diffusion of Electronic Medical Record technology (EMR). EMR allows medical providers to store and exchange patient information using computers rather than paper records. Hospitals may not adopt EMR if patients feel their privacy is not safeguarded by regulation. Alternatively, privacy protection may inhibit adoption if hospitals cannot benefit from exchanging patient information with one another. In the US, medical privacy laws that restrict the ability of hospitals to disclose patient information vary across time and across states. We exploit this variation to explore how privacy laws affect whether hospitals adopt EMR. Our results suggest that inhibition of EMR's network benefits reduces hospital adoption by up to 25 percent. We find similar evidence when we control for the endogeneity of state laws using variation in signups to the Do Not Call list. |
| Keywords: | Technology adoption, privacy laws, network effects, hospitals |
| JEL: | I1 K2 L5 O3 |
| Date: | 2007–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:net:wpaper:0716&r=ipr |
| By: | Gerald A. Carlino; Robert M. Hunt |
| Abstract: | This paper extends the research in Carlino, Chatterjee, and Hunt (2007) to examine the effects of local economic characteristics on the rate of innovation (as measured by patents) in more than a dozen industries. The availability of human capital is perhaps the most important factor explaining the invention rate for most industries. The authors find some evidence that higher job market density is associated with more patenting in industries such as pharmaceuticals and computers. They find evidence of increasing returns with respect to city size (total jobs) for many industries and more modest effects for increases in the size of an industry in a city. This suggests that inter-industry spillovers are often at least as important as intra-industry spillovers in explaining local rates of innovation. A more competitive local market structure, characterized by smaller establishments, contributes significantly to patenting in nearly all industries. More often than not, specialization among manufacturing industries is not particularly helpful, but the authors find the opposite for specialization among service industries. Industries benefit from different local sources of R&D (academia, government labs, and private labs) and to varying degrees. |
| Keywords: | Technological innovations |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:07-28&r=ipr |
| By: | Dario Sacco (Socioeconomic Institute, University of Zurich) |
| Abstract: | The paper analyzes the effects of competitive intensity on firms' incentives to invest in process innovations through an experiment based on two-stage games, where R&D investment choices are followed by product market competition. An increase in the intensity of competition is modeled as an increase in the number of Þrms or as a switch from Cournot to Bertrand. The theoretical prediction is that more intense competition is unfavorable to investments for both cases. In the experiment it turns out that the way of modeling the intensity of competition is essential. The theoretical prediction is confirmed for the number effects. On the other hand, the comparison of Cournot and Bertrand shows that more intense competition is beneÞcial for investments. |
| Keywords: | R&D investment, intensity of competition, experiment |
| JEL: | C92 L13 O31 |
| Date: | 2007–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:soz:wpaper:0714&r=ipr |
| By: | Charles Z. Liu (Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh); Chris F. Kemerer (Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh); Michael D. Smith (Heinz School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University) |
| Abstract: | Both theoretical and empirical evidence suggest that in markets with standards competition, strong network effects can make the strong grow stronger and, in some circumstances, even “tip” the market towards a single, winner-take-all standard. We theorize that in the presence of low cost conversion technologies and digital content, the tendency towards market dominance can be lessened to the point where multiple incompatible standards are viable. Our hypotheses are empirically examined in the context of the flash memory card market where both network effects and high quality conversion are present. The results show that the availability of digital converters reduces the price premium of the leading flash card formats more than of the minority formats. Therefore, producers of the non-dominant standards can be better off with the provision of conversion technology as this technology neutralizes the impact of network effects that would have otherwise been more potent. We discuss both the social and private implications of our findings. |
| Keywords: | network effects, standards competition, conversion technologies, flash memory, digital goods |
| JEL: | C12 C23 D62 L11 L15 |
| Date: | 2007–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:net:wpaper:0717&r=ipr |
| By: | Prejmerean, Mihaela Cornelia; Vasilache, Simona |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to bring to discussion ways to diagnose university’s organizational intelligence and to put forward some ways of measuring it. The main steps pursued refer to defining and describing the organizational particularities of universities, which modulate in specific ways organizational intelligence strategies implementation, applying the organizational intelligence standards to universities, and examining the features of the intelligence markets. The manner in which the paradigm of the traditional university is being changed, and finally eliminated, by the social stimuli which claim for a different type of intelligence originating in universities and which are the beneficiaries of the new model of university, as an organization in-between – preserving its idiosyncratic position, but engaging in mutually profitable alliances, is an issue we address to. |
| Keywords: | organizational intelligence; academic strategic management; intelligence markets |
| JEL: | I21 Z13 I23 |
| Date: | 2007–05–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:5574&r=ipr |