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on Intellectual Property Rights |
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Issue of 2014‒10‒22
five papers chosen by Giovanni Ramello Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale “Amedeo Avogadro” |
| By: | Lutao Ning; Martha Prevezer; Yuandi Wang |
| Abstract: | This paper confirms the positive relationship between national technological size and technological diversification (following Cantwell, Vertova 2004 for major developed economies) for China over three periods: from its premarket status 1986-1990, through its rapid marketization of 1991-2000, to its globalization phase from 2001-2011. The Chinese technological trajectory differs from the earlier developed world model significantly in tending to greater technological specialization from the outset of technological growth in the 1990s. We analyse a dataset of 3.7 million Chinese patents at the SIPO, Chinese patent office. Using shift-share analysis, we decompose changes in the relationship between technological size and diversification into those attributable to the increase in size (number of patents, population, GDP) and those attributable to the structural shift towards diversification or specialization between technological fields. We find that although the positive relation between size and diversification holds over all three periods, there is a structural shift between each period towards greater technological specialization. We argue that this mirrors the ‘globalizing’ FDI-driven shift that occurred in the US towards technological specialization between 1965 and 1990 (Cantwell and Vertova 2004). In China this represents a shift away from traditional fields such as consumer goods and equipment or transportation towards electronics and computing fields. |
| Keywords: | technological diversification and specialization; patents; China; R&D investment structure; size-diversification relationship |
| JEL: | O1 O3 O5 P5 |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgs:wpaper:55&r=ipr |
| By: | Doh-Shin Jeon (Toulouse School of Economics and CEPR); Yassine Lefouili (Toulouse School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the patent licensing networks formed by competing firms. Assuming that licensing agreements can involve the payment of fixed fees only and that firms compete à la Cournot, we show that the complete network is always bilaterally efficient and that the monopoly network is bilaterally efficient if the patents are complementary enough. In the case of independent patents, we fully characterize the bilaterally efficient networks and find that when the cost reduction resulting from getting access to a competitor's technology is large enough, the complete network is the only bilaterally efficient one. We also show that the bilaterally efficient networks can be sustained as subgame-perfect Nash equilibria with symmetric payoffs. This implies that the Pareto-dominance criterion selects the network that maximizes industry profits when more than one bilaterally efficient network exists. |
| Keywords: | Licensing; Networks; Antitrust and Intellectual Property |
| JEL: | L12 L13 L41 |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:net:wpaper:1416&r=ipr |
| By: | Wojciech Hardy (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw); Michał Krawczyk (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw); Joanna Tyrowicz (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw) |
| Abstract: | We report the results of an experimental study analyzing the effects of Internet piracy on book sales. We conducted a year-long controlled large-scale field experiment with pre-treatment pair matching. Half of the book titles received experimental treatment, in which a specialized agency would immediately remove any unauthorized copy appearing on the Internet. For the other half we merely registered such occurrences, but no countermeasures were taken. For all the titles we obtained print and e-book sales statistics from the publishers. We find that removal of unauthorized copies was an effective method of curbing piracy, but this had no bearing on legal sales. |
| Keywords: | digital piracy, e-books, field experiment |
| JEL: | C93 D12 K42 L82 O34 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2014-23&r=ipr |
| By: | Michele Peruzzi; Georg Zachmann; Reinhilde Veugelers |
| Abstract: | We further extend the information content in PATSTAT by linking it to Amadeus, a large database of companies that includes financial information. Patent microdata is now linked to financial performance data. Source code on Github. Download data. |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bre:wpaper:852&r=ipr |
| By: | Douglas Hanley |
| Abstract: | There is substantial heterogeneity across industries in the level of interdependence between new and old technologies. I propose a measure of this interdependence—an index of sequentiality in innovation—which is the transfer rate of patents in a particular industry. I find that highly sequential industries have higher profitability, higher variance of firm growth, lower exit rates, and lower rates of patent expiry. To better understand these trends, I construct a model of firm dynamics where the productivity of firms evolves endogenously through innovations. New innovators either replace existing technologies or must purchase the rights to existing technologies from incumbents in order to produce, depending on the level of sequentiality in the industry. Estimating the model using data on US firms and recent data on US patent transfers, I can account for a large fraction of the cross-industry trends described above. Because innovation results in larger monopoly distortions in more sequential industries, there is an overinvestment of research inputs into these industries. This misallocation, which amounts to 2.5% in consumption equivalent terms, can be partially remedied using a patent policy featuring weaker protection in more sequential industries, producing welfare gains of 1.7%. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, firm dynamics, technological change, optimal policy |
| JEL: | L11 O31 O33 O34 O38 |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pit:wpaper:533&r=ipr |