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on Intellectual Property Rights |
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Issue of 2014‒06‒22
eight papers chosen by Giovanni Ramello Universita' del Piemonte Orientale Amedeo Avogadro |
| By: | Haus, Axel (Dept. of Management and Microeconomics, Goethe University Frankfurt); Juranek, Steffen (Dept. of Business and Management Science, Norwegian School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | We examine the role of non-practicing entities (NPEs), often called patent trolls, in patent litigation. We present a theoretical model that predicts that cases with NPE patentees resolve faster. We test this prediction using a hand-collected data set of US patent litigation cases. We find that NPEs challenge larger and more technology intensive firms, and use more valuable patents from technology areas that have a less fragmented ownership base compared to the control group. Controlling for these factors, we find that NPE cases are indeed resolved faster. NPEs help to increase the speed of diffusion of technology into the economy; therefore, increasing the effectiveness of the market for innovation. |
| Keywords: | Litigation; patents; patent trolls; technology diffusion |
| JEL: | K00 K41 O34 |
| Date: | 2014–06–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhhfms:2014_024&r=ipr |
| By: | Bottomley, Sean |
| Abstract: | There are two competing accounts for explaining Britain's technological transformation during the Industrial Revolution. One sees it as the inevitable outcome of a largely exogenous increase in the supply of new ideas and ways of thinking. The other sees it as a demand side response to economic incentives – that in Britain, it paid to invent the technology of the Industrial Revolution. However, this second interpretation relies on the assumption that inventors were sufficiently responsive to new commercial opportunities. This paper tests this assumption, using a new dataset of Scottish and Irish patents. It finds that the propensity of inventors to extend patent protection into Scotland and/or Ireland was indeed closely correlated with the relative market opportunity of the patented invention. |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:iastwp:28168&r=ipr |
| By: | Spielman, David J.; Ma, Xingliang |
| Abstract: | The role of intellectual property rights (IPRs) has been extensively debated in the literature on technology transfers and agricultural production in developing countries. However, few studies offer cross-country evidence on how IPRs affect yield growth, for example, by incentivizing private-sector investment in cultivar improvement. We address this knowledge gap by testing technology diffusion patterns for six major crops using a unique dataset for the period 1961–2010 and an Arellano–Bond linear dynamic panel-data estimation approach. Findings indicate that both biological and legal forms of IPRs tend to promote yield gap convergence between developed and developing countries, although effects vary between crops. |
| Keywords: | Technology transfer, Agricultural development, productivity, Developing countries, Intellectual property rights, Diffusion of information, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1345&r=ipr |
| By: | Saini, Swati; Mehra, Meeta K |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of strengthening Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) on within-country income inequality for a cross-section of 65 developed and developing countries for the time period 1995-2009.Our results indicate that strengthening of IPRs has led to an increase in income inequality in WTO-member developing countries after they started modifying their national IPR regimes to conform to the TRIPs requirements. IPRs tend to raise income inequality by generating a more skewed distribution of wages. Stronger IPRs increase the demand for skilled labor force as it raises the return on R&D activities. This causes a relative increase in skilled labor wages, creating a wage bias in favor of skilled labor against unskilled labor, thus aggravating income inequality within a developing country. Moreover, the effect on inequality is more pronounced for developing countries that are experiencing higher per capita GDP growth rates. As for the developed countries included in the sample, the analysis seems to suggest that IPRs have led to a decline in income inequality over the study period. |
| Keywords: | Developing countries, Globalization, Inequality, Intellectual Property Rights |
| JEL: | O34 |
| Date: | 2014–02–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:56710&r=ipr |
| By: | Marc Baudry; Adrien Hervouet |
| Abstract: | This article deals with the impact of legislation in the seed sector on incentives for variety creation. Two categories of rules interact. The first category consists in intellectual property rights and is intended to address a problem of sequential innovation and R&D investments by the private sector. The second category concerns commercial rules that are intended to correct a problem of adverse selection on the seed market. We propose a dynamic model of market equilibrium with vertical product differentiation that enables us to take into account the economic consequences of imposing either Plant Breeders’ Rights (PBRs) or patents as IPRs. We simultaneously examine two kinds of commercial legislation: compulsory registration in a catalogue and minimum standards for commercialisation. Analytical results are completed by numerical simulations. The main result is that the combination between minimum standards and PBRs provides higher incentives for sequential innovation and may be preferred by a public regulator to maximise the expected and discounted total surplus when sunk investment costs are low or when they are medium and the probability of R&D success is sufficiently high. This solution differs from the combination of IPRs and commercialisation rules used in both the US and Europe. Otherwise, PBRs have to be replaced by patents, which yields a configuration close to that observed in the US. The catalogue commercialisation rule is seldom preferred to minimum standards, so that the combination of IPRs and commercialisation rules that prevails in Europe is not supported by our model. |
| Keywords: | Intellectual Property Rights, Plant Breeders’ Rights, Catalogue, Product differentiation, Asymmetric information, Biodiversity. |
| JEL: | D43 D82 K11 L13 Q12 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2014-32&r=ipr |
| By: | Ernest Miguélez (GREThA - UMR CNRS 5113, Universite Montesquieu) |
| Abstract: | This paper documents the influence of diaspora networks of highly-skilled individuals – i.e., inventors – on international technological collaborations. Using gravity models, it studies the determinants of the internationalization of inventive activity between a group of industrialized countries and a sample of developing and emerging economies. The paper examines the influence exerted by skilled diasporas in fostering cross-country co-inventorship as well as R&D offshoring. The study finds a strong and robust relationship between inventor diasporas and different forms of international co-patenting. However, the effect decreases with the level of formality of the interactions. Interestingly, some of the most successful diasporas recently documented – namely, Chinese and Indian ones – do not govern the results. |
| Keywords: | inventors, diaspora networks, international collaborations, R&D offshoring, PCT patents |
| JEL: | C8 J61 O31 O33 R0 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:1425&r=ipr |
| By: | MORIKAWA Masayuki |
| Abstract: | This paper, using Japanese firm-level data, presents findings about innovative activities in the service sector and the role of patents and trade secrets on innovation. According to the analysis, first, service firms have fewer product innovations than do manufacturing firms, but the productivity of innovative service firms is very high. Second, service firms have a low propensity for holding patents, but their holding of trade secrets is comparable to that of the manufacturing firms. Third, patents and trade secrets have positive relationships with product innovations, and the effects are quantitatively similar in magnitude in both the manufacturing and the service sectors. On the other hand, a positive relationship between trade secrets and process innovations is found only in the manufacturing sector. These results suggest a pivotal role of the law protecting trade secrets on innovation and productivity growth in the service sector. |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:14030&r=ipr |
| By: | Marchese, Carla; Marsiglio, Simone; Privileggi, Fabio; Ramello, Giovanni (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the relationship between economic growth, knowledge production and intellectual property rights. Economists and historians underline different aspects as possible causes of knowledge accumulation; the former stress the role of incentive mechanisms while the latter the autonomous progress of science. We construct a unified theory allowing for the presence of markets and the autonomous accumulation of knowledge by introducing intellectual property right policies in an endogenous recombinant growth model. In this framework a benevolent government should reallocate resources from the final to the knowledge production sector and implement a tax-subsidy scheme in order to correct for the inefficiencies generated by the process. We characterize the (asymptotic) steady state equilibrium, and some properties of the transitional path. We show that if certain conditions are met, then the economy will converge to its (asymptotic) balanced growth path, and along such a path growth will be independent of the government policy; conversely, transition dynamics and the capital to knowledge ratio are affected by the choice of the tax-subsidy parameter. We then quantitatively analyze the effect of different policy interventions on welfare, and show that welfare is increasing in the policy parameter and a strictly positive policy level may be required to avoid stagnation. |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:dipeco:201413&r=ipr |