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on Intellectual Property Rights |
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Issue of 2022‒12‒19
three papers chosen by Giovanni Ramello Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale “Amedeo Avogadro” |
| By: | Utku U. Acikalin; Tolga Caskurlu; Gerard Hoberg; Gordon M. Phillips |
| Abstract: | We examine the impact of lost intellectual property protection on innovation, competition, acquisitions, lawsuits and employment agreements. We consider firms whose ability to protect intellectual property (IP) using patents is weakened following the Alice Corp. vs. CLS Bank International Supreme Court decision. This decision has impacted patents in multiple areas including business methods, software, and bioinformatics. We use state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to identify firms’ existing patent portfolios’ potential exposure to the Alice decision. While all affected firms decrease patenting post-Alice, we find an unequal impact of decreased patent protection. Large affected firms benefit as their sales and market valuations increase, and their exposure to lawsuits decreases. They also acquire fewer firms post-Alice. Small affected firms lose as they face increased competition, product-market encroachment, and lower profits and valuations. They increase R&D and have their employees sign more nondisclosure agreements. |
| JEL: | D43 G34 O31 O33 O34 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30671&r=ipr |
| By: | Fei Yu (School of Economics and Management & Research Center for Technological Innovation, Tsinghua University); Yanrui Wu (Business School, The University of Western Australia); Jin Chen (School of Economics and Management & Research Center for Technological Innovation, Tsinghua University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, the term “strategic patent policy” refers to the case where examination of foreign firms’ patent applications may be deliberately manipulated by national patent offices so that domestic firms are protected and can leapfrog their foreign counterparts in technology in strategic sectors. However, it is not easy to distinguish the impacts of discriminatory patent policy from those due to liabilities of foreignness. Therefore, international intervention to eliminate discriminatory treatment becomes difficult. In this paper, we try to solve this conundrum by proposing a game-theory model to simulate the effect of strategic patent policy. The simulation results suggest that strategic patent policy measures are more likely to impede foreign patents that are (1) associated with R&D-intensive industries, (2) related to sectors where local firms’ absorptive capability is weak, and (3) registered in more countries. These hypotheses are then tested empirically by using patent databases of six major economies in the world. The empirical analysis provides evidence of possible existence of strategic patent policy against foreign companies in Japan and China, especially in high-technology and medium-high-technology industries. |
| Keywords: | Technological Leapfrogging and Strategic Patent Policy |
| JEL: | L16 O31 O34 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwa:wpaper:22-17&r=ipr |
| By: | Antonin Bergeaud; Julia Schmidt; Riccardo Zago |
| Abstract: | When a technology becomes the new standard, the firms that are leaders in producing this technology have a competitive advantage. Matching the semantic content of patents to standards and exploiting the exogenous timing of standardization, we show that firms closer to the new technological frontier increase their market share and sales. In addition, if they operate in a very competitive market, these firms also increase their R&D expenses and investment. Yet, these effects are temporary since standardization creates a common technological basis for everyone, which allows followers to catch up and the economy to grow. |
| Keywords: | standardization, patents, competition, innovation, text mining |
| Date: | 2022–10–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1881&r=ipr |