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on Intellectual Property Rights |
| By: | Sebast ien Lechevalier; Yukio Ikeda; Junichi Nishimura |
| Abstract: | The growing trend of collaborative R&D has been well documented recently, both at a global level and through national and industry case studies. However, there is not yet any consensus regarding the following decisive questions: what are the exact level and evolution of R&D collaboration? What are the benefits of collaboration? What are the motives and determinants of firms engaging in R&D collaboration? In our opinion, these questions have not yet been answered due to the limitations of the data used in most empirical studies (large questionnaire surveys or very specific case studies). The main novelty of this paper is the use of patent data with a focus on information concerning inventors. These data are less biased than questionnaire surveys in terms of the size of the institutions; they are objective and are particularly appropriate for analyzing the benefits of collaboration. As the identification of the institutions to which individual inventors are affiliated is a particularly time consuming task, we focus on robot technology in Japan since the beginning of the 1990s. Our results are as follows. First, although the level of R&D collaboration in RT in Japan increased between 1991 and 2004, especially in the case of collaboration between firms and universities, it still remains low and is dominated by inter-firm collaborations. Second, we cannot definitively reject the conclusion that only the scale of the research has an impact on the quality of patents, when the unit of analysis is the patent; however, we show that there are significant spillover effects of collaboration, which imply an indirect effect on quality. Third, the determinants and motives which encourage firms to decide to engage in collaborative research differ depending on the partner they are collaborating with. In the case of collaboration with other firms, IO theories hold, as the existence of spillovers acts as an incentive. Regarding the collaboration with universities and public research institutes, the validity of capability theory, which emphasizes the quest for complementary knowledge and capability, is confirmed by our empirical investigation. |
| Keywords: | collaborative R&D, robot technology, patent data |
| JEL: | O31 O32 O34 |
| Date: | 2007–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:hituec:a498&r=ipr |
| By: | Hu, Albert; Brahmbhatt, Milan |
| Abstract: | The generation, diffusion, absorption and application of new technology, knowledge or ideas are crucial drivers of development. This paper surveys the diverse approaches to innovation adopted by East Asian economies, the problems faced and outcomes achieved, as well as possible policy lessons. Knowledge flows from advanced countries remain the primary source of new ideas in developing economies. The authors evaluate the role of three main channels for knowledge flows to East Asia - international trade, acquisition of disembodied knowledge and foreign direct investment. The paper then looks at the exceptionally fast growth in domestic innovation efforts in Korea, Taiwan (China), Singapore and China, drawing on information about R & D as well as original analysis of patent and patent citation data. Citation analysis shows that while East Asian innovations continue to draw heavily on knowledge flows from the US and Japan, citations to the same or to other East Asian economies are quickly rising, indicating the emergence of national and regional knowledge stocks as a foundation for innovation. A last section pulls together findings about policies and institutions to foster innovation, under three heads: the overall business environment for innovation (macroeconomic stability, financial development, openness, competition, intellectual property rights and the quality of communications infrastructure), human capital development, and government fiscal support for innovation. |
| Keywords: | E-Business,Knowledge Economy,Economic Theory & Research,Technology Industry,Agricultural Knowledge & Information Systems |
| Date: | 2007–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4403&r=ipr |
| By: | Reiko Aoki; Aaron Schiff |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews and compares patent pools and intellectual property clearinghouses as alternative systems for increasing the efficiency of access to intellectual property. These systems improve economic efficiency in downstream research and development by economizing on search and transaction costs faced by potential licensees, and by mitigating externalities among owners of complementary intellectual property that lead to excessively high license fees. We compare the administrative and economic features of different systems, review some successful examples, and suggest directions for future economic research. |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:hituec:a491&r=ipr |
| By: | Harhoff, Dietmar; Hoisl, Karin; Reichl, Bettina; van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, Bruno |
| Abstract: | One feature of the European patent system that is heavily criticized nowadays is related to its complex fragmentation and the induced cost burden for applicants. Once a patent is granted by the EPO, the assignee must validate (and often translate) it and pay the renewal fees to keep it in force in each country in which the applicant seeks protection. The objective of this paper is to assess to what extent validation and renewal fees as well as translation costs affect the validation behaviour of applicants. We rely on a gravity model that aims at explaining patent flows between inventor and target countries within the European patent system. The results show that the size of countries, their wealth and the distance between their capital cities are significant determinants of patent flows. Validation fees and renewal fees further affect the validation behaviour of applicants. Translation costs seem to have an impact as well. The important role played by fees suggests that the implementation of cost-reducing policy interventions like the London Protocol would induce a significant increase in the number of patents validated in each European country. |
| Keywords: | gravity model; patent fees; renewal fees; validation fees |
| JEL: | O30 O31 O38 O57 |
| Date: | 2007–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6565&r=ipr |
| By: | Mario Calderini (DISPEA, Polytechnic of Turin, Turin, Italy.); Chiara Franzoni (DISPEA, Polytechnic of Turin, Turin, Italy.); Andrea Vezzulli (CESPRI, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy.) |
| Abstract: | We analyzed the scientific productivity of a sample of academic scientists that contribute to the field of Materials Science in the post-patenting period, by means of several econometric techniques suitable to treat unobserved heterogeneity, excess zeros and incidental truncation. Although patents do not alter the track of publications in the overall sample, we show this effect to be generated by two opposite effects: Materials Engineers increase their publications after patenting, whereas Materials Chemists experience a decrease. Besides, Materials Engineers who were academic inventors have a higher impact factor than their non-inventors colleagues, although the positive effect tends to vanish both for very basic publications and for serial inventions. Finally, a clearly negative effect is registered when we consider only very basic publications made by Materials Chemists. We interpret our findings as depending on different epistemologies of scientific and engineering research and discuss the implications for both university managers and policy makers. |
| Keywords: | Academic Patenting, Science and Engineering Research, Technology Transfer, Science Policy, University Management. |
| JEL: | O31 O33 I23 I28 |
| Date: | 2007–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cri:cespri:wp203&r=ipr |
| By: | Agustí Segarra-Blasco (Grup de Recerca en Indústria i Territori(GRIT), Departament d'Economia, Universitat Rovira i Virgili.) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the performance of companies’ R&D and innovation and the effects of intra- and inter-industry R&D spillover on firms’ productivity in Catalonia. The paper deals simultaneously with the performance of manufacturing and service firms, with the aim of highlighting the growing role of knowledge-intensive services in promoting innovation and productivity gains. We find that intra-industry R&D spillovers have an important effect on the productivity level of manufacturing firms, and the inter-industrial R&D spillovers related to computer and software services also play an important role, especially in high-tech manufacturing industries. The main conclusion is that the traditional classification of manufactured goods and services no longer makes sense in the ‘knowledge economy’ and in Catalonia the regional policy makers will have to design policies that favour inter-industrial R&D flows, especially from high-tech services. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, R&D spillovers, KIS services, Productivity |
| JEL: | L10 |
| Date: | 2007–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:xrp:wpaper:xreap2007-12&r=ipr |
| By: | Reiko Aoki; Aaron Schiff |
| Abstract: | We focus on downstream uses that combine multiple intellectual property rights and examine the effects of introducing an intellectual property clearinghouse that reduces transaction costs associated with licensing. We show that this causes equilibrium royalties to rise in some cases and may harm licensors due to the etragedy of the anticommonsf. Downstream welfare effects may also be positive or negative and we characterise the effects on downstream manufacturers and final consumers. We also show that total welfare is most likely to increase following a transaction cost reduction when the number of intellectual property rights per downstream use is small, or if rights are relatively substitutable in downstream use, but it is also possible for welfare to decrease. |
| Keywords: | Intellectual property, licensing, tragedy of the anticommons, clearinghouses |
| JEL: | L24 O34 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:hituec:a495&r=ipr |
| By: | Ramello, Giovanni B. |
| Abstract: | The main rationale for intellectual property relies on the thesis of the incentive to create. Creators and inventors are economic agents attracted by the returns they expect from their effort. This depiction is practical, but does not give due weight to the complexity of knowledge production. This work does not contest the potential benefit of the opportunity for creators and inventors to reap some profit from their work. Rather, it considers the idiosyncratic nature of knowledge, which is simultaneously input, output and productive technology, and is closely linked to the social dimension. This provides further insight into the production process and suggests a significantly different framework for policy. More specifically, because of the increasing returns governing creative technology, the efficiency criterion used to guide the economic choice calls for weak intellectual property rights, thus preserving wide access to knowledge. A stronger appropriation regime would significantly impair the total outcome of the creative processes. Interestingly, this appears to apply equally from a social justice perspective, perhaps in an effortless solution to the age-old trade-off between economic efficiency and social justice. |
| Keywords: | intellectual property rights, knowledge production, increasing returns, knowledge sharing, productivity, social justice |
| JEL: | C2 D2 D61 O31 O38 D78 |
| Date: | 2007–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uca:ucapdv:90&r=ipr |
| By: | Alessandra Catozzella (University of Pavia); Marco Vivarelli (IPTS Seville, Catholic University of Milan, CSGR Warwick and IZA) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this study is to test the possible catalysing role of in-house R&D in fostering the complementarity of innovative inputs on a sample of 3045 manufacturing firms drawn from the third Italian Community Innovation Survey (1998-2000). The interactions between four different sources of innovation - internal and external R&D, embodied and disembodied technological acquisitions - have been simultaneously explored through the two (direct and indirect) testing frameworks for complementarity. Results from both the approaches show that the innovative process is a phenomenon combining within itself both complementarity and substitutability relationships, depending both on the typology of the targeted innovation output and on the particular combination of innovative inputs we focus on. In particular, it is in-house R&D that seems to create the precondition allowing firms to enjoy complementarity effects. Indeed, the possibility of exploiting synergies between different innovative inputs turns out to be subordinated to having undertaken a minimum amount of internal R&D. The implication of this result is that a role for in-house R&D emerges, beyond its direct effect in generating an innovative output: even if internal research is not a necessary precondition for a firm to be innovative, it should still be carried out because of its important role in the generation of synergies that amplify the impacts of the other innovative inputs it interacts with. |
| Keywords: | R&D, innovation, complementarity, supermodularity, substitutability |
| JEL: | O31 |
| Date: | 2007–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3126&r=ipr |
| By: | Alessandra Catozzella (Universita degli Studi di Pavia); Marco Vivarelli (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena; Institute for Prospective Technological Studies-European Commission, Seville; Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan; and Institute for the Study of Labour (IZA), Bonn) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to test the possible catalysing role of in-house R+D in fostering the complementarity of innovative inputs on a sample of 3045 manufacturing firms drawn from the third Italian Community Innovation Survey (1998-2000). The interactions between four different sources of innovation - internal and external R+D, embodied and disembodied technological acquisitions - have been simultaneously explored through the two (direct and indirect) testing frameworks for complementarity. Results from both the approaches show that the innovative process is a phenomenon combining within itself both complementarity and substitutability relationships, depending both on the typology of the targeted innovation output and on the particular combination of innovative inputs we focus on. In particular, it is in-house R+D that seems to create the precondition allowing firms to enjoy complementarity effects. Indeed, the possibility of exploiting synergies between different innovative inputs turns out to be subordinated to having undertaken a minimum amount of internal R+D. The implication of this result is that a role for in-house R+D emerges, beyond its direct effect in generating an innovative output: even if internal research is not a necessary precondition for a firm to be innovative, it should still be carried out because of its important role in the generation of synergies that amplify the impacts of the other innovative inputs it interacts with. |
| Keywords: | R+D, innovation, complementarity, supermodularity, substitutability |
| JEL: | O31 |
| Date: | 2007–11–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2007-087&r=ipr |
| By: | Frédéric Deroïan; Christian Milelli; Zouhaïer M’Chirgui |
| Abstract: | This paper describes inter-firm partnerships in three major high-tech industries over the 1985-2005 period. We found that the architecture of the respective networks had evolved toward a 'small world' in the early 1990s. We also found that the number of alliances collapsed in the late 1990s. This result roughly follows the number of patents granted in the respective industries and is correlated to an increase in market concentration, and to some extent to the rising number of mergers and acquisitions. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, R&D Partnerships, High-Tech Industries, Network Architecture |
| JEL: | L24 L6 O31 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2007-24&r=ipr |