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on Intellectual Property Rights |
| By: | Akifumi Ishihara (Kyoto University); Noriyuki Yanagawa (The University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines roles of patent pools with compulsory independent licensing. A seminal work by Lerner and Tirole (2004) have shown that requiring independent licensing or compulsory independent licensing is a useful tool to select only desirable patent pools. In this paper, however, we are going to show that their argument is not always true, If there are users who demand only a part of the pooled technologies, the compulsory independent licensing gives a tool for price discrimination for the patent holders, and that is welfare decreasing under some conditions. Moreover, the compulsory independent licensing may promote entry deterrence when there are lower grade entrants. Even in this sense, compulsory independent licensing decreases social welfare. The welfare under the patent pool with independent licensing may become lower than that under the competitive licensing. |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfi:fseres:cf318&r=ipr |
| By: | Yamauchi, Isamu; Nagaoka, Sadao |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effects of outsourcing of prior art search on the efficiency of patent examination, using a large scale Japanese patent examination data. Outsourcing may increase examination quality by expanding the scope of prior art search, while it may have a negative effect if the synergy between search and examination is important. If examination quality is the predominant concern for outsourcing decision and the outsourcing is constrained by budgetary resources, we expect that outsourcing enhances examination quality at its margin. On the other hand, if an examiner can save private cost by outsourcing, an increase in outsourcing can decrease the quality. Controlling for the endogeneity of outsourcing decision as well as examiners’ fixed effects, we found that the outsourcing of prior art search significantly decreased the frequency of appeals against both examiners’ rejection and grant decisions and reduced the length of examination duration. At the same time we found that the prior art search of complex inventions is not outsourced. These suggest that the opportunity for exploiting external knowledge and capability can increase the quality as well as the speed of examination. |
| Keywords: | patent, examination, outsourcing, search, prior art |
| JEL: | O38 O34 O30 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:iirwps:13-12&r=ipr |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu; Ufuk Akcigit; Nicholas Bloom; William R. Kerr |
| Abstract: | We build a model of firm-level innovation, productivity growth and reallocation featuring endogenous entry and exit. A key feature is the selection between high- and low-type firms, which differ in terms of their innovative capacity. We estimate the parameters of the model using detailed US Census micro data on firm-level output, R&D and patenting. The model provides a good fit to the dynamics of firm entry and exit, output and R&D, and its implied elasticities are in the ballpark of a range of micro estimates. We find industrial policy subsidizing either the R&D or the continued operation of incumbents reduces growth and welfare. For example, a subsidy to incumbent R&D equivalent to 5% of GDP reduces welfare by about 1.5% because it deters entry of new high-type firms. On the contrary, substantial improvements (of the order of 5% improvement in welfare) are possible if the continued operation of incumbents is taxed while at the same time R&D by incumbents and new entrants is subsidized. This is because of a strong selection effect: R&D resources (skilled labor) are inefficiently used by low-type incumbent firms. Subsidies to incumbents encourage the survival and expansion of these firms at the expense of potential high-type entrants. We show that optimal policy encourages the exit of low-type firms and supports R&D by high-type incumbents and entry. |
| Keywords: | industrial policy, productivity growth, innovation, R&D |
| JEL: | E02 L1 O31 O32 O33 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1216&r=ipr |