Patent replacement and welfare gains

Patents were chosen in an era when modern public finance tools were unavailable. The same innovation outcomes can be achieved with higher welfare, if patent elements are replaced by modern features. This paper constructs two theoretical models of product innovation and simulates the welfare effects of replacing patents with an intertemporal-bounty arrangement. We find that replacing patents with this alternative has the potential to increase welfare in the United States through reform of pharmaceutical patents by $43.9-$194 billion when measured in present value terms (this is 0.3-1.3% of annual GDP) based on simulations involving four selected drug sectors. The potential to increase welfare would be higher if applied to the larger sector of drugs as a whole. In principal, patents could be replaced in other sectors as well.     

Analysis of technological innovation based on citation information

The paper discusses the dynamic properties of the patent network. Technological innovation occurs frequently, and predicting where it will happen is difficult because an economic system can adapt to changing technology. We construct a patent network based on the cited relations between patents and analyze the properties of the patent network from January 1976 to December 2005 by using USPTO patent data. We find that technology trends, which are calculated by our measures, are similar with historical trends of technology, showing that our measures would be useful to predict future technology relations. Also, we find that the change of similarity between patents shows meaningful results in terms of technological innovation.     

REAL OPTIONS AND PATENT DAMAGES: THE LEGAL TREATMENT OF NON-INFRINGING ALTERNATIVES, AND INCENTIVES TO INNOVATE

Abstract.  Patent litigation has become an increasingly important consideration in business strategy. Damage awards in patent litigation are supposed to compensate the patent owner for economic harm created by infringement and are therefore important for protecting returns to innovation. We analyze the effects that a recent court decision in the United States, called Grain Processing , has had on the incentives of potential infringers to infringe and innovators to innovate. We find that Grain Processing has decreased the expected value of damages awards in patent cases by conferring a 'free option' on infringers. Grain Processing also concluded that the patent owner in the case did not suffer lost profits due to the infringement because the infringer would have adopted an (inferior) non-infringing technology had it not infringed. We demonstrate that this conclusion is inconsistent with standard economic models.     

How R&D Competition Affects Investment Choices

We analyze firm research and development investment incentives in a framework in which only one innovation can be undertaken. We assume that the probability of discovering the innovation depends on a parameter that represents the technical difficulty of innovating. We show that patent protection is not always necessary for investments to be made. With patent protection, research and development competition leads to a symmetric equilibrium. Moreover, firms over‐invest in marginal innovation but under‐invest in difficult innovation, which explains why and how public authorities should intervene to promote specific research in certain economic sectors. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Patents, Invalidity, and the Strategic Transmission of Enabling Information

The patent system encourages innovation and knowledge disclosure by providing exclusivity to inventors. Exclusivity is limited, however, because a substantial fraction of patents have some probability of being ruled invalid when challenged in court. The possibility of invalidity—and an ensuing market competition—suggests that when an innovator's capability (e.g., cost of production) is private information, there is potential value to an innovator from signaling strong capability via a disclosure that transfers technical knowledge to a competitor. We model a product-innovation setting in which a valid patent gives market exclusivity and find a unique signaling equilibrium. One might expect that as the probability that a patent will be invalid becomes low, greater disclosure will be induced. We do not find this expectation to be generally supported. Further, even where full disclosure arises in equilibrium, it is only the less capable who make full disclosures. The equilibrium analysis also highlights many of the novel and appealing features of enabling knowledge disclosure signals.     

对我国企业债券品种的初步构想

文章通过对一些债券创新品种的研究,发现本息可拆离债券可以增强债券流动性,缓解长期债券发行困难的问题。而发展高收益债券则可以推动成长型中小企业的发展,引导社会资源向新兴产业配置,也是构建多层次资本市场的需要。探索专利证券化在一定程度上解决了知识密集型企业融资困难,技术创新风险大的问题,还有助于实现我国产业转型升级的目标。     

审计技术创新生态网络演进及其价值发现研究

审计技术创新是审计事业高质量发展的技术基础,探索新时代审计技术创新的范式具有重要的理论价值和实践意义。基于审计专利数据,运用社会网络分析方法,构建了审计技术创新生态网络,揭示了审计技术创新生态网络的演化过程,探究了网络位置对创新主体创新绩效的影响。研究表明：审计技术创新生态网络演化呈现出清晰的逻辑模式;创新网络中心度对创新主体的创新绩效有显著积极效应。进一步研究发现,创新生态网络对低生态势生态位创新主体的积极影响大于高生态势生态位创新主体,低生态势生态位创新主体通过融入审计技术创新网络更容易提升创新绩效。     

Getting Away with Robbery? Patenting Behavior with the Threat of Infringement

The paper examines how an innovator's ability to enforce her patent rights affects (and is affected by) her decision to patent her innovation and her patent breadth decision. Specifically, the paper shows that the innovator may find it optimal to patent her innovation even if litigation is not pursued in the event of patent imitation. The patent is valuable because it can be used to influence the entrant's location decision in a way that is profitable for the incumbent. In addition to showing that a patent need not be legally enforced to be valuable, the paper shows that the lower is the entrant's R&D cost, the smaller is the innovator's incentive to patent her product. If patenting occurs, however, the lower is the R&D cost, the greater is the patent breadth that could be chosen without triggering imitation.     

Excludability, creativity and the case against the patent system

The patent system has many flaws. In its absence, there would probably be increased innovation if only because money spent on patents and lawsuits would be available for R&D. In any case, an inventor is to some extent protected by law provided he explains that an idea is his personal property. A patent adds nothing to the value of an impractical invention and little to one that might seem promising.     

Stakeholder Governance for Responsible Innovation: A Theory of Value Creation,Appropriation, and Distribution

In the face of intractable societal grand challenges, organizations increasingly resort to responsible innovation – that is, they pledge to create value for multiple stakeholders through developing new products or services that avoid doing harm and improve conditions for people and the planet. While the link between responsible innovation and societal improvements has been established, organizations pursuing responsible innovation lack governance mechanisms to guide the allocation of the value created – both economic and social – among heterogeneous stakeholders, in line with their responsible intent. We combine the value-based strategy and stakeholder perspectives and infuse a deliberative process to design a three-stage model of value allocation that rests on three key organizational decisions: i) what value to create and for whom, ii) how to appropriate the value created vis-à-vis unintended value appropriators, and iii) how to distribute the value appropriated among intended stakeholders. We propose a framework of stakeholder governance comprised of four novel mechanisms by which organizations can allocate value among their multiple principal stakeholders as part of participative processes. Our study contributes to responsible innovation and corporate governance research by unpacking how new value is managed to solve societal grand challenges.     

同时创新市场条件下的知识产权保护策略与专利政策

本文构建了一个同时创新模型来研究同时创新市场条件下的知识产权保护策略与专利政策。研究表明,同时创新对于知识产权保护具有多重含义。具体而言,由于同时创新改变了企业的创新保护策略,企业申请专利主要是出于防御目的,因而利用同时创新的这种特性,就有可能设计一种促使企业申请专利而不是寻求内部保护的专利制度,这种制度虽然对创新提供了较企业内部保护弱的保护,却能够使社会福利得以提升。另外,传统认为的竞争政策和专利的对立关系,在同时竞争的市场条件下,需要重新认识,专利不仅不会损害竞争,反而会促进竞争。     

Patent Breadth, Patent Life, and the Pace of Technological Progress

In active investment climates where firms sequentially improve each other's products, a patent can terminate either because it expires or because a non-infringing innovation displaces its product in the market. We define the length of time until one of these happens as the effective patent life, and show how it depends on patent breadth. We distinguish lagging breadth, which protects against imitation, from leading breadth, which protects against new improved products. We compare two types of patent policy with leading breadth: (1) patents are finite but very broad, so that the effective life of a patent coincides with its statutory life, and (2) patents are long but narrow, so that the effective life of a patent ends when a better product replaces it. The former policy improves the diffusion of new products, but the latter has lower R&D costs.     

Learning by Exporting: New Insights from Examining Firm Innovation

Empirical findings across many nations show that exporters have superior productivity compared to nonexporters and that this relationship is driven by productive firms becoming exporters. The conclusion drawn from these studies is that there is little learning from exporting. We, however, assess if there are ex post benefits that accrue to exporting firms by examining innovation outcomes. We argue that exporters can often access diverse knowledge inputs not available in the domestic market, that this knowledge can spill back to the focal firm, and that such learning can foster increased innovation. We examine product innovation and patent application counts of a representative sample of Spanish manufacturing firms from 1990 to 1997. To conduct the analysis, we use a nonlinear GMM estimator for exponential models with panel data that allows for predetermined regressors and linear feedback. We find that exporting is associated with innovation. Moreover, the panel data allow us to explore the temporal relationship between exporting and innovation. In contrast to existing findings, we find evidence of learning by exporting—albeit in dimensions not previously examined in the literature.     

企业创新投资的城市同群效应研究

基于企业战略决策的竞争机制和信息机制，以2008—2020年沪深A股上市公司作为研究样本，探究企业创新投资的同群效应、影响因素和经济后果。研究发现，同群企业创新投资对焦点企业创新投资具有显著的促进作用，即企业创新投资存在城市同群效应。焦点企业的市场地位及其与同群企业之间的地理距离会弱化企业创新投资的城市同群效应，同群企业的分析师关注度和焦点企业的管理层职业背景多样性会强化企业创新投资的城市同群效应。异质性分析检验显示，国有企业产权属性会弱化企业创新投资的城市同群效应，企业的高新技术属性和所在地的创新环境会强化企业创新投资的城市同群效应。经济后果检验表明，企业创新投资的城市同群效应能够提高焦点企业专利产出和市场价值。研究在丰富企业创新投资驱动因素研究的同时，也为推动创新驱动发展战略提供了有益思路。     

Dynamic Effects of Patent Policy on Sequential Innovation

When one patented innovation enables another, endogenous delay of the latter has important implications for the economics of patent life and scope, if licensing is negotiated ex post. Optimal patent life may be finite under competition, even if the royalty imposes no deadweight loss and there is no competitive dissipation of rent. Reduced scope of the first patent eliminates delay of costly enabled innovations, whether monopolized or competitive, and a combination of limited scope and infinite life can be optimal. If the second innovation is negotiated ex ante, its patentability can increase or decrease the first innovator's profit, depending on cost and market structure of the second innovation, and patent life.     

When patents matter: The impact of competition and patent age on the performance contribution of intellectual property rights protection

The question whether patenting impacts patenting firms' subsequent financial performance is important for technology-oriented companies. However, relevant research has led to contradictory results. We strive to overcome this impasse by introducing innovation competition and patent age as moderators of patents' performance contribution into the discourse. Based on a sample of 975 cases from diverse industries, we find strong support for our arguments. In line with our expectations, the results show that the number of patents granted, the degree of patent competition, and the timeliness of a patent contribute positively to financial performance. Moderation analysis nuances our findings by showing that the impact of patent protection on financial performance is stronger when the patent competition is stronger and the patents are younger.These findings provide insights into the conditions under which patenting leads to higher financial performance. Our findings highlight the importance of innovation competition and patent age for innovation research. The empirical results show firms that patenting pays and that, in order to tap the full potential of patents, they need to focus on emerging competing industries and reduce the time to market. Policy makers learn that patenting is a successful approach to foster innovation at limited social costs.     

探讨企事业单位专利管理与保护创新策略

专利权是企事业单位最重要的无形资产,企事业单位能够有效发挥专利权作用的前提是建立起恰当的专利管理模式与专利保护创新策略。本文针对当前企事业单位专利工作实际情况,提出专利全过程管理模式以及适用于企事业单位发展的专利保护创新策略。     

技术创新与专利保护相互作用机制研究

在知识经济的时代,技术创新能力已成为衡量一国经济发展水平和国际竞争力的重要标志。而技术创新只有通过相关法律程序获得合法产权,形成知识产权并得到保护,整个社会的技术创新机制才能健康运行。本文首先阐述了技术创新和专利保护的理论基础,分析了对技术进行专利保护的重要性,主要分析了技术创新和专利保护的相互关系,概括了其积极作用与消极影响,研究了部分高校与企业在对技术创新进行专利保护上出现的问题,分析了应对技术创新选择合理的产权保护方式,最终实现企业的最大利益。     

The size distribution of innovations revisited: An application of extreme value statistics to citation and value measures of patent significance

This paper focuses on the analysis of size distributions of innovations, which are known to be highly skewed. We use patent citations as one indicator of innovation significance, constructing two large datasets from the European and US Patent Offices at a high level of aggregation, and the Trajtenberg [1990, A penny for your quotes: patent citations and the value of innovations. Rand Journal of Economics 21(1), 172–187] dataset on CT scanners at a very low one. We also study self-assessed reports of patented innovation values using two very recent patent valuation datasets from the Netherlands and the UK, as well as a small dataset of patent licence revenues of Harvard University. Statistical methods are applied to analyse the properties of the empirical size distributions, where we put special emphasis on testing for the existence of ‘heavy tails’, i.e., whether or not the probability of very large innovations declines more slowly than exponentially. While overall the distributions appear to resemble a lognormal, we argue that the tails are indeed fat. We invoke some recent results from extreme value statistics and apply the Hill [1975. A simple general approach to inference about the tails of a distribution. The Annals of Statistics 3, 1163–1174] estimator with data-driven cut-offs to determine the tail index for the right tails of all datasets except the NL and UK patent valuations. On these latter datasets we use a maximum likelihood estimator for grouped data to estimate the tail index for varying definitions of the right tail. We find significantly and consistently lower tail estimates for the returns data than the citation data (around 0.6–1 vs. 3–5). The EPO and US patent citation tail indices are roughly constant over time, but the latter estimates are significantly lower than the former. The heaviness of the tails, particularly as measured by value indicators, we argue, has significant implications for technology policy and growth theory, since the second and possibly even the first moments of these distributions may not exist.     

Revisiting the role of modular innovation in technological radicalness and architectural change of products: The case of Tesla X and Roomba

The management literature defines modular innovation as a way to make technological changes in product modules that does not necessarily change the product architecture. However, engineering science shows that new product modules not only change the product architecture, but they can also be used for technologically radical next generation products. Therefore, there seems to be a misalignment in how the role of modular innovation is seen as an innovation management phenomenon and the actual practice of product design and engineering. We revisit the role of modular innovation by combining management and engineering approaches. We demonstrate the applicability of this approach through two cases that utilize patent data of two recent technologically innovative products: Tesla's Model X and iRobot's Roomba automated vacuum cleaner. The examples show, in detail, how the changes in product modules and functions have led to broader changes at the system architecture level, leading to new functionalities. The findings contribute to the innovation management literature by identifying a more nuanced role of modular innovation by embedding it in the product architecture, thus broadening the discussion on architectural innovation and technological radicalness.