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on Intellectual Property Rights |
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Issue of 2019‒12‒16
ten papers chosen by Giovanni Ramello Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale “Amedeo Avogadro” |
| By: | Catalina MARTINEZ; Valerio STERZI |
| Abstract: | Intellectual property regimes governing university inventions were quite diverse in Europe at the end of the 1990s. Several European countries maintained the so-called professor’s privilege, an exception to employment law whereby university researchers were allowed to retain the ownership of academic inventions. The 2000s were characterised by convergence towards a more homogeneous system, in which university administrations took control of IP management. We investigate the impact of the reform and we observe a decline in the technological importance and the value of the patents owned and managed by universities in the countries abolishing the professor’s privilege. On the contrary, by differentiating the academic patents by type of ownership, we find that the technological importance of academic patents owned by companies has instead increased. Our study produces some new results that may alert policymakers to the possible unintended consequences of the university ownership model. |
| Keywords: | University-owned patents; academic-invented patents; patent quality; patent management; patent value; technology transfer |
| JEL: | I23 L26 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2019-15&r=all |
| By: | Dirk Czarnitzki; Kristof Van Criekingen |
| Abstract: | We contribute to the economic literature on patent litigation by taking a new perspective. In the past, scholars mostly focused on specific litigation cases at the patent level and related technological characteristics to the event of litigation. However, observing IP disputes suggests that not only technological characteristics may trigger litigation suits, but also the market positions of firms, and that firms dispute not only about single patents but often about portfolios. Consequently, this paper examines the occurrence of IP litigation cases in Belgian firms using the 2013 Community Innovation Survey with supplemental information on IP litigation and patent portfolios. The rich survey information regarding firms’ general innovation strategies enables us to introduce market-related variables such as sales with new products as well as sales based mainly on imitation and incremental innovation. Our results indicate that when controlling for firms’ IP portfolio, the composition of turnover in terms of innovations and imitations has additional explanatory power regarding litigation propensities. Firms with a high turnover from innovations are more likely to become plaintiffs in court. Contrastingly, firms with a high turnover from incremental innovation and imitation are more likely to become defendants in court, and, moreover, are more likely to negotiate settlements outside of court. |
| Keywords: | IP litigation, patenting, innovation, imitation |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ete:ecoomp:621964&r=all |
| By: | Knut Blind; Mirko Bohm |
| Abstract: | This report has been developed in the framework of the 2017 Communication of the European Commission ‘Setting out the EU approach to Standard Essential Patents’ (COM(2017) 712 final). In this Communication there is a direct commitment that 'The Commission will work with stakeholders, open source communities and SDOs for successful interaction between open source and standardisation, by means of studies and analyses'. Standards and open source development are both processes widely adopted in the ICT industry to develop innovative technologies and drive their adoption in the market. Innovators and policy makers assume that a closer collaboration between standards and open source software development would be mutually beneficial. The interaction between the two is however not yet fully understood, especially with regard to how the intellectual property regimes applied by these organisations influence their ability and motivation to cooperate. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the interaction between standard development organisations (SDOs) and open source software (OSS) communities. The analysis is based on 20 case studies, a survey of stakeholders involved in SDOs and OSS communities, an expert workshop, and a comprehensive review of the literature. |
| Keywords: | Open source software development, standard development organization, intellectual property rights, intellectual property policies, FRAND licensing |
| Date: | 2019–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc117836&r=all |
| By: | Caroline Paunov (OECD); Dominique Guellec (OECD); Nevine El-Mallakh (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne); Sandra Planes-Satorra (OECD); Lukas Nüse (Bertelsmann Foundation) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how digital technologies have shaped the concentration of inventive activity in cities across 30 OECD countries. It finds that patenting is highly concentrated: from 2010 to 2014, 10% of cities accounted for 64% of patent applications to the European Patent Office, with the top five (Tokyo, Seoul, San Francisco, Higashiosaka and Paris) representing 21.8% of applications. The share of the top cities in total patenting increased modestly from 1995 to 2014. Digital technology patent applications are more concentrated in top cities than applications in other technology fields. In the United States, which has led digital technology deployment, the concentration of patent applications in top cities increased more than in Japan and Europe over the two decades. Econometric results confirm that digital technology relates positively to patenting activities in cities and that it benefits top cities, in particular, thereby strengthening the concentration of innovation in these cities. |
| Keywords: | cities, digital technologies, geography of innovation, innovation, local knowledge spillovers, OECD countries, patenting |
| JEL: | R12 O31 O34 |
| Date: | 2019–12–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:stiaac:85-en&r=all |
| By: | Frosio, Giancarlo (Strasbourg University) |
| Abstract: | For millennia, Western and Eastern culture shared a common creative paradigm. From Confucian China, across the Hindu Kush with the Indian Mahābhārata, the Bible, the Koran and the Homeric epics, to Platonic mimēsis and Shakespeare’s “borrowed feathers,” our culture was created under a fully open regime of access to pre-existing expressions and re-use. Creativity used to be propelled by the power of imitation. However, modern policies have largely forgotten the cumulative and collaborative nature of creativity. Actually, the last three decades have witnessed an unprecedented expansion of intellectual property rights in sharp contrast with the open and participatory social norms governing creativity in the networked environment. Against this background, this paper discusses the reaction to traditional copyright policy and the emergence of a social movement re-imagining copyright according to a common tradition focusing on re-use, collaboration, access and cumulative creativity. This reaction builds upon copyright’s growing irrelevance in the public mind, especially among younger generations in the digital environment, because of the emergence of new economics of digital content distribution in the Internet. Along the way, the rise of the users, and the demise of traditional gatekeepers, forced a process of reconsideration of copyright’s rationale and welfare incentives. Scholarly and market alternatives to traditional copyright have been plenty, attempting to reconcile pre-modern, modern and post-modern creative paradigms. Building upon this body of research, proposals and practice, this Article will finally try to chart a roadmap for reform that reconnects Eastern and Western creative experience in light of a common past, looking for a shared future. |
| Date: | 2018–01–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:crnks&r=all |
| By: | Walker Hanlon; Taylor Jaworski |
| Abstract: | Can granting IP protection to producers of one good affect the innovation rate in other related goods? To answer this question we exploit a unique policy experiment in the inter-war military aircraft industry. Airframe designs had little IP protection before 1926, but changes passed by Congress in 1926 provided airframe manufacturers with enhanced property rights over the new designs they produced. We show that granting property rights to airframe producers increased innovation in airframes, but slowed down innovation in aero-engines, a complementary good where there was no change in the availability of IP protection. We propose and test a simple theory that explains these patterns. |
| JEL: | N72 O34 |
| Date: | 2019–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26490&r=all |
| By: | Corinne Rochette (CleRMa - Clermont Recherche Management - Clermont Auvergne - École Supérieure de Commerce (ESC) - Clermont-Ferrand - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne); Cédrine Zumbo-Lebrument (CleRMa - Clermont Recherche Management - Clermont Auvergne - École Supérieure de Commerce (ESC) - Clermont-Ferrand - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne); Charles Houllier-Guibert (NIMEC - Normandie Innovation Marché Entreprise Consommation - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - ULH - Université Le Havre Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UNIROUEN - Université de Rouen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - IRIHS - Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire Homme et Société - UNIROUEN - Université de Rouen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université) |
| Abstract: | French local authorities have launched on branding strategies, particularly the regions, in the early 2000s with the will to stand their territory in order to increase their attractiveness. Territorial reform created by the law NOTRe (New Territorial Organization of the Republic) effective from 1 January 2016, reducing the regions from 22 to 13, has consequences for some of its brands on their strategy and question their future. Some attach to highlight the social and emotional dimensions that individuals have with their territory and they are also trying to create a proximity between actors and between the territory of even the actors themselves. It is in this context of fusion as we envisage brand territory as a joint instrument of various forms of spatial proximity and non-space from the grid of the economy of proximity (Pecqueur, Zimmermann, 2004; Boschma, 2005; Talbot, Kirat, 2005; Torre, Rallet, 2005). After evaluating the scenarios identified in a prior research work (Rochette, Zumbo-Lebrument, 2016), we show, using a descriptive analysis based on the results of a survey on 102 individuals, what scenario is considered as a desirable one and those considered as a probable one for the brand in the context of the new region Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. This study shows the existence of a link between the brand of a region and the different dimensions of proximity. The fragility and friability of the proximities explain the difficulty to evolve the place branding in a context of spatial redefinition of the region. The study also highlights the fact that the geographical dimension of proximity proves to be the anchor of other forms of proximity. |
| Abstract: | Depuis 10 ans, de nombreuses collectivités territoriales françaises ont initié des stratégies de marque pour renforcer l'attractivité de leur territoire et les liens entre les acteurs. La réforme territoriale questionne le devenir de ces marques et l'activation des proximités sur lesquelles ces marques collectives s'appuient. La grille de l'économie de la proximité (Boschma, 2005) est mobilisée pour dégager les liens entre les acteurs engagés dans la stratégie de marque et leurs intensités. Ce travail met à jour les leviers possibles de l'évolution de la marque dans un contexte de changement de périmètre géographique et administratif des régions. L'étude du cas d'une marque régionale permet, parmi six scénarios possibles d'évolution de dégager celui considéré comme le plus probable. |
| Keywords: | Marketing territorial,marque territoire,réforme territoriale,proximités,management public,place branding,territorial reform,proximities,public management,place marketing |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02370801&r=all |
| By: | Daunfeldt, Sven-Olov (Institute of Retail Economics (Handelns Forskningsinstitut)); Moradi, Jasmine (Space Sonology); Rudholm, Niklas (Institute of Retail Economics (Handelns Forskningsinstitut)); Öberg, Christina (Örebro University) |
| Abstract: | The effects of in-store music on consumer behavior have attracted much attention in the marketing literature, but surprisingly few studies have investigated in-store music in relation to employees. Conducting a large-scale field experiment in eight Filippa K fashion stores in Stockholm, Sweden, we investigate whether it is beneficial for store owners to give employees more opportunities to influence the in-store music. The experiment lasted 56 weeks, and the stores were randomly assigned into a treatment group and a control group, with the employees in the treatment stores having the opportunity to influence the in-store music through an app developed by Soundtrack Your Brand (SYB). The results from the experiment show that sales decreased by, on average, 6% in treatment stores when employees had the opportunity to influence the music played in the store. Interviews revealed that employees frequently changed songs, preferred to play high-intensity songs, and had diverse music preferences that were not congruent with the brand values of the company. Our results thus imply that employees choose music that suits their preferences rather than based on what is optimal for the store, suggesting that store owners might want to limit their opportunities to influence the background music in stores. |
| Keywords: | Background music; Brand-fit music; Music tempo; Consumer behavior; Job satisfaction; Atmospheric cues; Work environment; Field experiment |
| JEL: | C93 D22 L81 M31 M54 |
| Date: | 2019–12–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:hfiwps:0004&r=all |
| By: | Rimmer, Matthew (Queensland University of Technology) |
| Abstract: | The multidisciplinary field of climate law and justice needs to address the topic of intellectual property, climate finance, and technology transfer to ensure effective global action on climate change. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 1992 (UNFCCC) established a foundation for the development, application and diffusion of low-carbon technologies. Against this background, it is useful to analyse how the Paris Agreement 2015 deals with the subject of intellectual property, technology transfer, and climate change. While there was discussion of a number of options for intellectual property and climate change, the final Paris Agreement 2015 contains no text on intellectual property. There is text, though, on technology transfer. The Paris Agreement 2015 relies upon technology networks and alliances in order to promote the diffusion and dissemination of green technologies. In order to achieve technology transfer, there has been an effort to rely on a number of formal technology networks, alliances, and public–private partnerships—including the UNFCCC Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN); the World Intellectual Property Organization’s WIPO GREEN; Mission Innovation; the Breakthrough Energy Coalition; and the International Solar Alliance. There have been grand hopes and ambitions in respect of these collaborative and co-operative ventures. However, there have also been significant challenges in terms of funding, support, and operation. In a case of innovation policy pluralism, there also seems to be a significant level of overlap and duplication between the diverse international initiatives. There have been concerns about whether such technology networks are effective, efficient, adaptable, and accountable. There is a need to better align intellectual property, innovation policy, and technology transfer in order to achieve access to clean energy and climate justice under the framework of the Paris Agreement 2015. At a conceptual level, philosophical discussions about climate justice should be grounded in pragmatic considerations about intellectual property and technology transfer. An intellectual property mechanism is necessary to provide for research, development, and deployment of clean technologies. There is a need to ensure that the technology mechanism of the Paris Agreement 2015 can enable the research, development, and diffusion of clean technologies at a scale to address the global challenges of climate change. |
| Date: | 2019–02–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:fxhvm&r=all |
| By: | Maina, Fredah Wangui; Mburu, John; Ackello-Ogutu, Chris; Egelyng, Henrik |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Agribusiness |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaae19:295854&r=all |