The Rate of Progress in Agricultural Biotechnology

The average quality of agricultural biotechnology patents appears to have declined substantially during the past two decades. This quality deterioration may reflect either a decline in the significance of new inventions or an increased use of patents as "protective thickets" against competitors' challenges to more important discoveries. Either way, patent proliferation may be boosting the transaction costs in intellectual property markets, imperiling intellectual exchange and hence technical progress.     

Cross-licensing agreements in presence of technological improvements

This study investigates the relationship between technologies that firms expect to achieve after cross-licensing (CL) and their incentives for signing CL agreements in a multiproduct-firm setting. Results indicate that if markets are bounded substantial technological improvements that result in removal of firms’ current products from the market may in fact reduce firms’ incentives to negotiate a CL deal. This may also give firms an incentive to agree upon a tacit collusion by which they limit the utilization of CL technologies. However, when markets are unbounded, the prospect of capturing new markets and charging royalty fees can significantly increase firms’ incentives for CL. The rationale behind our modeling assumptions is discussed using example from agriculture biotechnology industry.     

基于专利的全球秸秆利用技术发展态势分析

[目的]通过专利分析揭示全球秸秆利用技术的研发现状与态势,为中国秸秆产业创新技术发展提供情报支撑。[方法]文章利用Derwent Innovation (DI)、德温特数据分析软件（Derwent Data Analyzer,DDA）、incoPat等专业分析工具和平台,对申请年截止日期为2020年的全球秸秆利用专利申请趋势、专利布局、重要申请人、技术发展态势等内容进行深入分析。[结果]（1）截止2020年,中国秸秆利用发明专利数量为5.36万件,占全球的76.80%,居第一。美国希乐克公司专利申请量居首位,中国科学院、中国农业科学院分列第二、第三位。中国专利申请呈“小而散”的特点。（2）中国秸秆利用专利布局主要在国内,涵盖了“五料化”（肥料化、饲料化、燃料化、基料化、原料化）利用各领域,且以秸秆肥料化利用专利为主。（3）对全球排名前50申请人类型分析表明,国外申请人以企业为主,中国申请人类型则以高校和研究机构为主。（4）中国秸秆利用专利授权率20.49%,转让与许可专利比例仅为5.56%,与发达国家差距仍较大（美国73.67%）。[结论]中国是秸秆利用专利申请大国,但与发达国家相比,...     

The Evolving Structure of Chinese R&D Funding and its Implications for the Productivity of Agricultural Biotechnology Research

China’s research and development (R&D) policy has changed considerably over recent decades, and great changes occurred in 2006 when the main programme objective of China’s R&D changed from the 863 Programme and 973 Programme to the National Science and Technology Major Project. One topic that has drawn extensive attention is whether the investment reform improved R&D productivity in China. Using a unique panel dataset from 160 universities, this paper examines the effect of the investment reform on productivity improvement in China’s agricultural biotechnology sector. We use a panel count data model with a dynamic feedback mechanism to model the knowledge production process. Strong evidence indicates that the investment reform greatly contributes to knowledge output production in China’s agricultural biotechnology sector. We also find that the input quality is more important than the absolute quantity; human research capacity exhibits the greatest contribution to the output of patents; past knowledge accumulation helps produce more patents; and entry barriers to patent production exist in China’s agricultural biotechnology sector. Moreover, the patent explosion in China may have been largely caused by improvements in the human capital input quality.     

Strategic Behavior and Consolidation in the Agricultural Biotechnology Industry

We develop a model explaining the consolidation patterns in the agricultural biotechnology industry. Among different consolidation and cooperation mechanisms, we consider collaborative and licensing agreements, joint ventures, acquisitions, and exchanges of ownership and spin-offs. The key results derive from the benefits of coordinated actions, distinction between transferable and nontransferable payoffs, the substitutability, complementarity, and the importance of the managers' noncontractible investments, and access and expansion of markets. Results from the model are used to examine the cooperation and consolidation activities for four major players in the agricultural biotechnology industry, DuPont , Dow Chemical , Monsanto , and Novartis .     

论生物遗传资源的知识产权保护

生物遗传资源是生物科学研究的重要基础,是人类生存和经济社会可持续发展战略性物资。生物遗传资源的获取和惠益分享与知识产权法律制度有着密切的联系。当前,世界各国采用的遗传资源知识产权保护类型,主要有专利保护、植物育种者权利保护和农民权保护。中国宜采用组合保护的方式,确认遗传资源为国家所有,确立遗传资源权制度、植物品种权利制度以及专利制度,以加强遗传资源的保护。     

A Dynamic Analysis of University Agricultural Biotechnology Patent Production

This article examines the factors that account for agricultural biotechnology patenting success among universities using a dynamic count data model. It builds a theoretical and econometric model to capture the inherently dynamic and nonlinear process of technological innovation, wherein a feedback mechanism from previous success partially determines current patent counts. The econometric estimates reveal the importance to agricultural biotechnology patent production of land grant infrastructure, quality faculty, patent-oriented technology transfer offices, as well as dynamic feedback effects.     

The transformation of the Indian agricultural input industry: has it increased agricultural R&D?

Indian agricultural input industries have gone through a major transformation in the last 40 years. State owned firms grew during the Green Revolution and then stagnated or declined. Indian corporations that were protected from foreign competition are now exporters of agricultural tractors and pesticides. Foreign multinational corporations are rapidly increasing their role in the seed, pesticide, and tractor industries. Entry by large Indian firms and multinationals has increased competition in the input industries. Private agribusiness R&D in India grew from $23 million in 1985 to $250 million in 2009 in 2005 US dollars. This is the same time period as a transformation in the agricultural input industry, rapid growth in demand for agricultural inputs, breakthroughs in information technology and biotechnology, and changes in intellectual property rights. An econometric model was used to test whether the transformation of agricultural input industry was a major factor in the growth of R&D expenditure or not. This article analyzes a unique, firm level sales and R&D data set from the seed, pesticide, tractor, and fertilizer industries in 2000–2009. The estimated model indicates that agribusiness firms' R&D expenditures from 2000 to 2009 were positively related to variables associated with industry transformation such as firm size, ownership by multinationals, and declining industry concentration. The model also indicates that strengthening patent policy as well as growth in the size of research‐intensive industries like the seed industry contributed to the growth of agribusiness R&D in India.     

Trade-off relationship between modern agriculture and biodiversity: Heavy consolidation work has a long-term negative impact on plant species diversity

Human-driven land-use changes often cause a decline in biodiversity. Although traditional agricultural practices maintained biodiversity at high levels, recent land-use changes may have negative consequences on species composition. In this study, we examined the hypothesis that land consolidation, which is a major recent land-use change in agricultural areas, decreases plant species diversity over the long term (the so-called negative legacy). To test this hypothesis, we examined the relationships between consolidated areas and the occurrence of threatened plant species across Japan and at the prefecture scale. Twenty-three threatened plant species were selected, all of which were formerly common. Our results show that areas containing records of threatened plant species rarely experienced consolidation at whole-country and prefectural scales. Breakdown analysis showed that unconsolidated agricultural areas contained significantly more threatened species than consolidated agricultural areas. These results suggest that threatened plant species require unconsolidated agricultural areas (i.e., these species could not grow in consolidated areas). Thus, we propose that consolidation history could be used as an indicator of the potential for biodiversity recovery. We also suggest that consolidated agricultural areas should be used for food production rather than for the restoration of biodiversity, for reasons of cost efficiency.     

University licensing of patents for varietal innovations in agriculture

There has been a sharp increase in the number of patented agricultural varieties from public universities in the United States. We develop an experiment to examine the revenue stream to universities from licensing plant‐based innovations. In the experiment we asked subjects to bid for access for a patented input that would be used to produce a differentiated product; treatments were employed to solicit bids that were financed by fees, royalties, and a combination of the two mechanisms under exclusive and nonexclusive contracts. The literature studying the economics of downstream duopoly competition in quantity suggests that revenues for the innovator would be greatest under a nonexclusive contract that uses fees and royalties. In our experiment we allow more than two firms to obtain access to the patent in the nonexclusive treatments, and our empirical results suggest that innovator revenues are greatest when royalties are used alone in a nonexclusive contract.     

Regulatory Events and Biotech Firm Share Prices

Using the "event study" method, we measure the impact on agricultural biotechnology firm equity values of new regulations and other limitations placed on the marketing of biotech crops. Unanticipated declines to biotech firm stock prices indicate that newly imposed regulatory restrictions appear most likely to diminish profit expectations for these firms. The stock price reaction to decisions by crop handlers, processors, or retailers to segregate or limit the use of biotech crops and to reports questioning their safety are less pronounced. Incentives to engage in new biotech crop research and development may be diminished by these developments.     

The impact of seed industry concentration on innovation: a study of US biotech market leaders

Agricultural research drives increases in agricultural productivity, and the number of private agricultural input firms has been declining. The empirical relationship between the number of firms doing applied biotechnology crop research and the amount of research output they produce is investigated in a research profit function model. Increases in seed industry concentration have reduced biotech research intensity in the United States in the 1990s. Concentration and research are simultaneously determined and are influenced by the appropriability of research results and the state of technological opportunity.     

基于专利分析的美藤果开发现状及其应用研究

本文对美藤果的专利申请进行了统计分析,通过检索专利数据库,分析涉及美藤果专利申请的数量、申请人的分布、主要申请人的技术发展,并对涉及美藤果食品的专利申请数量、研究和应用范围进行了分析和总结,以期为美藤果的深入研究和开发利用提供借鉴。     

The Internet's Impact on Agricultural Input Distribution Channels

Agricultural input distribution channels incorporate a number of complexities that make communication of prices and availability murky, and create inefficiencies in input markets. The Internet provides the potential for realizing significant efficiency gains in the agricultural inputs industry through the continued consolidation and vertical integration made possible by improving communications networks. Innovative firms have the opportunity to profit from the changes wrought and encouraged by the Internet.     

地方专利技术展示交易平台存在的问题与解决思路

地方专利展示交易平台当前普遍存在基础技术资源质量不高、供给推动型模式与市场脱节、交易方式单调、专业中介服务机构服务水平低下、缺乏对外交流与联系、地方特色不明显等问题。借鉴英国BTG的成功经验,平台的未来发展策略应当以提升技术产品质量和服务质量为基础,积极推动市场化运作改革,通过创新交易方式和服务手段促进服务的全方位化,同时加强专利经纪人队伍培养,根据本地区产业优势努力打造平台特色。     

Patent Rights and Trade: Analysis of Biological Products, Medicinals and Botanicals, and Pharmaceuticals

This article analyzes the effects of foreign patent rights on U.S. bilateral exports. The empirical analysis covers three highly disaggregated drug industries over three decades. We estimate bilateral trade equations for each industry using cross-country data on the strength of national patent rights. The findings show that strong foreign patent rights enhance the market power of U.S. drug exporters across countries with weak imitative abilities. Alternatively, strong foreign patent rights stimulate the market expansion of U.S. drug exports across countries with strong imitative abilities. These effects are larger in magnitude during the 1980–90s relative to the 1970s.     

Do subsidies cause a less competitive milk market in China?

After 2008, China dairy industry has experienced a consolidation supported by the government mainly for the reason of food safety. Subsidies are one of the tools to shape a concentrated market with goals of reducing regulation cost and accomplishing quality control. This gives a serious concern that subsidies would generate a less competitive dairy industry. We construct a parametric model and use the firm‐level panel data, specifically the top eight dairy firms, to test if government subsidies strengthen the market power in the dairy industry. Our empirical results indicate government subsidies have a negative impact on the Lerner index for the top privately owned firms, but no significant effect on state‐controlled ones after controlling for advertising, time trend, and proprietorship. It is possible that the subsidies give more room for private firms to increase the scale or suppress the price, which eventually reduces the market power and benefits dairy customers in the downstream.     

PERSPECTIVES ON AGRICULTURAL BIOTECHNOLOGY RESEARCH FOR SMALL COUNTRIES

The Rockefeller Foundation currently provides about 7.0 million annually for a comprehensive programme of rice biotechnology research designed to meet the needs of the developing world. Early in the programme deliberate decisions were made by the Foundation to support all the components of research required to make new varieties ready for testing, from determining what plant traits should receive priority to strategic technique development through the incorporation of traits into varieties. Agricultural biotechnology research is risky, high-cost relative to other agricultural research, has a long time lag to payoff, and requires efficiently functioning ‘conventional’ research to be effective. Most small developing countries do not have the conditions necessary to make productive investments in agricultural biotechnology, except possibly for sharply defined tissue-culture activities. A wise use of funds would be to concentrate on producing enough indigenous talent to give knowledgeable advice to policy makers on the costs, time lags and possible benefits of agricultural biotechnology.     

Trends in University Ag-Biotech Patent Production

This work exploits information on U.S. patents to identify trends in university ag-biotech patenting and citation performance. It sets forth some key issues concerning patterns of university ag-biotech patenting and then provides an empirical analysis of the evolving trends. Land grant universities account for most U.S. ag-biotech patents. The data show a path-dependent innovation pattern, in which there also seems to be a culture of patenting that develops at certain universities. Evidence shows that ag-biotech patents are more cited than the average university patent. Inequalities across land grant universities are also evident in the production of ag-biotech patents, although perhaps not to a much greater degree than underlying inequalities in funding and research qualities. The paper closes by considering how the evidence offered might be used to advance the public discussion regarding trends in agricultural biotechnology research in the United States.     

The Economics of Dot.coms and E-commerce in the Agrifood Sector

The Internet, as a distributed information system, has the capability to reinforce the current structure of the U.S. agricultural and food system, and/or to facilitate shifts in the pattern of structural change. E-commerce can act as a coordinating mechanism that will strengthen the tendencies toward growth in firm size and agribusiness consolidation. On the other hand, the Internet could foster greater numbers of smaller, entrepreneurial firms. In reviewing the factors that support both types of effect, I conclude that we have yet to see which one influence outweighs the other.