Promoting innovation and competition with patent policy

Recently the role of institutions on growth, and especially the influence of Intellectual Property Rights, has been integrated into the Schumpeterian Growth Framework. In this contribution, we highlight the possibility using one patent’s characteristic, the patent height, as an instrument for promoting innovation and growth. We introduce this possibility into the Segerstrom (Am Econ Rev 80:1290–1310, 1998)/Li (Am Econ Rev 93:1009–1018, 2003) quality ladders model of growth. The Li (Am Econ Rev 93: 1009–1018, 2003) generalized model overturns Segerstrom (Am Econ Rev 80:1290–1310, 1998) policy implication in terms of the size of innovations having to be taxed or subsidized by relaxing a crucial assumption on the value of the elasticity of substitution between goods. In this paper, we point out the fact that the innovation size requirement has to be considered as a policy instrument, so that it appears extremely important to consider the case when the innovation size has been made endogenous. A patent policy using the novelty requirement as an instrument for innovation policy enables implementation of the social optimum. The consequences of this policy for market structure and economic growth are then discussed. When the level of the patent novelty requirement is initially high, a patent policy that weakens the patent height can reinforce competition and promote innovation.