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on Intellectual Property Rights |
| By: | Yasuhiro Arai |
| Abstract: | We discuss the software patent should be granted or not. There exist two types of coping in the software market; reverse engineering and software duplication. Software patent can prevent both types of copies since a patent protects an idea. If the software is not protected by a patent, software producer cannot prevent reverse engineering. However, the producer can prevent the software duplication by a copyright. It is not clear the software patent is socially desirable when we consider these two types of coping. We obtain the following results. First, the number of copy users under the patent protection is greater than that under the copyright protection. Second, the government can increase social welfare by applying copyright protection when the new technology is sufficiently innovative. |
| Keywords: | Copyright Protection, Intellectual Property Right, Software |
| JEL: | D42 K39 L86 |
| Date: | 2010–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hst:ghsdps:gd09-112&r=ipr |
| By: | Czarnitzki, Dirk; Hussinger, Katrin; Schneider, Cédric |
| Abstract: | Against the background of the so-called “European paradox”, i.e. the conjecture that EU countries lack the capability to transfer science into commercial innovations, knowledge transfer from academia to industry has been a central issue in policy debates recently. Based on a sample of German scientists we investigate which academic inventions are patented by a scientific assignee and which are owned by corporate entities. Our findings suggest that faculty patents assigned to corporations exhibit a higher short-term value in terms of forward citations and a higher potential to block property rights of competitors. Faculty patents assigned to academic inventors or to public research institutions, in contrast, are more complex, more basic and have stronger links to science. These results may suggest that European firms lack the absorptive capacity to identify and exploit academic inventions that are further away from market applications. |
| Keywords: | academic inventors; university-industry technology transfer; intellectual property rights; |
| Date: | 2009–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:leuven:urn:hdl:123456789/254004&r=ipr |
| By: | Klaus Schmidt (University of Munich) |
| Abstract: | Many high technology goods are based on standards that require several essential patents owned by different IP holders. This gives rise to a complements and a double mark-up problem. We compare the welfare effects of two different business strategies dealing with these problems. Vertical integration of an IP holder and a downstream producer solves the double mark-up problem between these firms. Nevertheless, it may raise royalty rates and reduce output as compared to non-integration. Horizontal integration of IP holders solves the complements problem but not the double mark-up problem. Vertical integration discourages entry and reduces innovation incentives, while horizontal integration always benefits from entry and innovation |
| Keywords: | IP rights, complementary patents, standards, licensing, patent pool, vertical integration |
| JEL: | L1 L4 |
| Date: | 2009–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trf:wpaper:274&r=ipr |
| By: | Bouguezzi, Fehmi |
| Abstract: | This paper compares patent licensing regimes in a Hotelling model where firms are located symmetrically and not necessary at the end points of the city. I suppose that one of the firms owns a process innovation reducing the marginal unit cost. This patent holding firm will decide to sell a license or not to the non innovative firm and will choose, when licensing, between a fixed fee or a royalty. The key difference between this paper and other papers is that here I suppose that firms are not static and can move along the linear city symmetrically. I find that when there is no licensing, Nash equilibrium exists only when innovation is non drastic. I also find that royalties licensing is better than fixed fee licensing when innovation is small. When the innovation is intermediate I find that fixed fee is better than a royalty. The paper shows that a fixed fee is not better than a non licensing regime independently of the innovation size and the optimal licensing regime is royalties when innovation is small. Finally, I show that a patent holding firm should not license its innovation when it is intermediate or drastic |
| Keywords: | Hotelling model; Technology transfer; Patent licensing |
| JEL: | L0 D45 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:21055&r=ipr |
| By: | Gerard Llobet (CEMFI, Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros); Javier Suarez (CEMFI, Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros) |
| Abstract: | We assess the effects of imitation and intellectual property (IP) protection in a model of industry dynamics in which the value of IP is eroded by further innovations and imitations. Innovations result from the development of ideas engendered by entrepreneurs. We find that innovation and welfare are decreasing in the protection of IP against further innovations, while their relationship with the protection against imitations typically has an inverted-U shape (partly because imitation reduces the resistance of incumbents to innovators). We also find that the welfare gains from increasing IP protection increase if entrepreneurs are financially constrained. |
| Date: | 2010–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmf:wpaper:wp2010_1001&r=ipr |
| By: | Gerard Llobet (CEMFI, Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros); Anne Layne-Farrar (LECG Consulting); A. Jorge Padilla (LECG Consulting) |
| Abstract: | Under the legal doctrine of first sale, or patent exhaustion, a patent holder's ability to license multiple parties along a production chain is restricted. How and when such restrictions should be applied is a controversial issue, as evidenced by the Supreme Court's granting certiorari in the Quanta case. The issue is important, as it has significant implications for how firms can license in verically disaggregated industries. We explore this issue from an economic viewpoint and find that under ideal circumstances how royalty rates are split along the production chain has no real consequence for social welfare. Even when we depart from ideal conditions, however, we still find no economic justification for a strict application of patent exhaustion. To the contrary, we show there are often private and social advantages to charging royalties at multiple stages. Our results advocate for a flexible application of the first sale doctrine, where exhaustion holds as a default rule but can be easily overwritten in patent contracts. |
| Date: | 2010–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmf:wpaper:wp2010_1002&r=ipr |
| By: | Konstantinos Karachalios (Eurpoean Patent Office); ; |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the use of proprietary technology in key ICT standards, an important challenge for standards policy. However, the gaming and the loopholes between standardisation and patent system leave enough space for extreme individualist optimisation strategies, and thus considerable rent seeking. Thus, civil society and governments increasingly doubt that the existing regulatory frameworks may guarantee a smooth functioning of both systems in the future. However, strong-handed governmental interventions may lead to de facto trade protectionism and serious geopolitical frictions, according to the European Patent Office’s (EPO) Scenarios for the Future analysis. To avoid the worst case scenario, patent authorities should depart from their traditionally reluctant stance and assume a more pro-active role in this field. They can improve governance by increasing transparency and promoting respect of the rules at the interface of the patenting and standardisation process. To achieve this, a structured cooperation and exchange of per se public information between patent and competition authorities as well as formal standardisation bodies is necessary. |
| Date: | 2010–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ewc:wpaper:wp110&r=ipr |
| By: | Cassiman, Bruno; Veugelers, Reinhilde; Zuniga, Pluvia |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the diversity of the types of links of firms to science and their effect on innovation performance for a sample of Belgian firms. While at the industry level links to science are highly related to the R&D intensity of the sector, we show that there exists considerable heterogeneity in the type of links to science at the firm level. Overall, firms with a science link enjoy superior innovation performance, in particular with respect to innovations that are new to the market. At the invention level, our findings confirm that patents from firms engaged in science are more frequently cited and have a broader technological and geographical impact, but we show that it is crucial to distinguish between direct science links at the invention level and indirect science links at the firm level to encounter these distinct positive effects of science links. |
| Keywords: | Innovation; Cooperation; Patents; forward citation; science; industrial innovation; |
| Date: | 2009–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:leuven:urn:hdl:123456789/255978&r=ipr |
| By: | Sonderholm, Jorn |
| Abstract: | The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights negotiated in 1986 under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the institutional predecessor of the World Trade Organization, incorporated substantial and uniform protections of intellectual property rights into the international trade system. A large body of contemporary academic literature suggests that intellectual property rights on socially valuable goods such as essential medicines give rise to a number of ethical problems. This review paper seeks to give an overview of these problems. Moreover, it offers an outline and discussion of a number of proposals as to how these problems might be alleviated. The paper is primarily descriptive in character. This means that although a personal perspective is sometimes offered, the primary ambition of the paper is not to argue for, and defend, a particular solution to the issues discussed. The aim is rather to highlight, explain and put into perspective a number of important arguments in the debate on the ethical nature of intellectual property rights so that policy-makers and other stakeholders are relatively well-equipped to make up their own mind on the issue. |
| Keywords: | Markets and Market Access,E-Business,Population Policies,Debt Markets,Economic Theory&Research |
| Date: | 2010–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5228&r=ipr |
| By: | Giovanni Cerulli; Bianca Potì (CERIS-CNR, Institute for Economic Research on Firms and Growth) |
| Abstract: | The paper explores the impact of a specific R&D policy tool, the Italian “Fondo per le Agevolazioni della Ricerca” (FAR), on industrial R&D and technological output at firm level. Our objective is threefold: first, identifying econometrically the presence/absence of private R&D investment additionality/crowding-out within a pooled sample, in a series of firms’ subsets (by regional, dimensional, technological and other characterizations), and by taking into account the effect of single as well as a mix of policy instruments; second, exploring the output (innovation) additionality by comparing the differential impact of “privately funded” (firm own resources) and “public funded” industrial R&D expenditures on firm patent applications; third, comparing the structural characteristics of the group of firm performing additionality with that doing crowding-out, in order to appreciate which are the firm characteristics driving to the success of the policy at stake. Our results suggest that FAR has been effective in the pooled sample, although no effect emerges in some subsets of firms. In particular, while large firms seem to have been decisive for the success of this policy, small firms present a more marked crowding-out effect. Furthermore, firm growth’s strategy and capacity of effectively transform R&D input into innovation output (patents) seem to lead toward a better effect in term of additionality. |
| Keywords: | business R&D; public incentives; econometric evaluation |
| JEL: | O32 C52 O38 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dsc:wpaper:10&r=ipr |