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on Intellectual Property Rights |
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Issue of 2020‒05‒11
three papers chosen by Giovanni Ramello Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale “Amedeo Avogadro” |
| By: | Marta Montinaro (University of Salento); Rupayan Pal (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research); Marcella Scrimitore (University of Salento) |
| Abstract: | In a context of product innovation, we study two-part tariff licensing between a patentee and a potential rival which compete in a differentiated product market characterized by network externalities. The latter are shown to crucially affect the relative profitability of Cournot vs. Bertrand when a per unit royalty is applied. By contrast, we find that Cournot yields higher profits than Bertrand under ad valorem royalties, regardless of the strength of network effects. |
| Keywords: | Licensing, Product Innovation, Bertrand, Cournot, Network Effects |
| JEL: | L13 L20 D43 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:igiwpp:2020-014&r=all |
| By: | Anuraag Singh; Giorgio Triulzi; Christopher L. Magee |
| Abstract: | In this work, we attempt to provide a comprehensive granular account of the pace of technological change. More specifically, we survey estimated yearly performance improvement rates for nearly all definable technologies for the first time. We do this by creating a correspondence of all patents within the US patent system to a set of technology domains. A technology domain is a body of patented inventions achieving the same technological function using the same knowledge and scientific principles. We obtain a set of 1757 domains using an extension of the previously defined classification overlap method (COM). These domains contain 97.14% of all patents within the entire US patent system. From the identified patent sets, we calculated the average centrality of the patents in each domain to estimate their improvement rates, following a methodology tested in prior work. The estimated improvement rates vary from a low of 1.9% per year for the Mechanical Skin treatment - Hair Removal and wrinkles domain to a high of 228.8% per year for the Network management - client-server applications domain. We developed a one-line descriptor identifying the technological function achieved and the underlying knowledge base for the largest 50, fastest 20 as well as slowest 20 of these domains, which cover more than forty percent of the patent system. In general, the rates of improvement were not a strong function of the patent set size and the fastest improving domains are predominantly software-based. We make available an online system that allows for automated searching for domains and improvement rates corresponding to any technology of interest to researchers, strategists and policy formulators. |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2004.13919&r=all |
| By: | Wojciech Hardy |
| Abstract: | Much like the music and movie industries before, the comic book industry has entered the digital markets and faces the unfair competition of unauthorized sources. I conduct a survey among comic book readers to infer whether the unpaid channels harm the sales of comic books from the top American publishers. My data allows me to construct a time panel of comics readers and calculate the substitution rate between the paid and unpaid channels of comics acquisition. Moreover, I show that the digital comics – both paid and unpaid – are typically considered as inferior by the readers. With the price of digitally released new comics set at the same level as their print versions, this suggests that readers who do not want to pay the full price for print copies are more likely to use pirate sources than to switch to legal digital channels. Indeed, among the surveyed sample, lowering the price of digital comics could help convert some of the unpaid acquisitions into paid digital ones. |
| Keywords: | comic books, media, digital formats, piracy, file-sharing |
| JEL: | C83 K42 O34 Z11 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ibt:wpaper:wp012020&r=all |