Oxford Review of Economic Policy - current issue

Intellectual property: the assessment

Siegel, D. S., Wright, M. — 2008-01-11

In recent years, there has been an increase in the commercialization of intellectual property (IP), via such mechanisms as patents, licences, copyrights, and trade marks. New institutions (e.g. science parks), as well as new organizational forms (e.g. research joint ventures), have emerged to facilitate the creation and commercialization of IP. Existing institutions, most notably universities, have become much more aggressive in protecting their IP and devising ways to generate additional revenue from their IP portfolios. These trends have important policy implications, which are addressed by the authors in this issue. We summarize their contributions and provide some context for assessing these salient matters.

The value of intellectual property rights to firms and society

Greenhalgh, C., Rogers, M. — 2008-01-11

Economists view intellectual property rights (IPRs) as policy tools for encouraging innovation, but they recognize that they can also inhibit competition. There are many types of IPRs and institutions concerned with their administration. We begin by outlining how these complex and varied rights are supposed to work and how they interact with other characteristics of firms and markets. We then survey the available literature on patents, trade marks, and copyright to assess the value of these IPRs to firms and the costs to firms of acquiring and defending their rights. The paper concludes with suggestions for topics requiring further research to inform public policy better.

Patents and patent policy

Hall, B. H. — 2008-01-11

A patent is the legal right of an inventor to exclude others from making or using a particular invention. This right is sometimes termed an ‘intellectual property right’ and is viewed as an incentive for innovation. This article surveys the evidence on patent effectiveness in encouraging innovation and reviews the current controversies in patent policy.

Per un pugno di dollari: a first look at the price elasticity of patents

de Rassenfosse, G., van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, B. — 2008-01-16

This paper analyses the role of patent-filing fees requested by the member states of the European Patent Convention (EPC). We provide first empirical evidence showing that the fee elasticity of the demand for priority applications is negative and significant. Given the strong variation in absolute fees and in fees per capita across countries, this result indicates a suboptimal treatment of inventors across European countries and suggests that fees should be considered as an integral part of an intellectual property policy, especially in the current context of worrying backlogs. In addition, we show that the transfer rate of domestic priority filings to the European Patent Office (EPO) increases with the duration of membership to the EPO and the GDP per capita of a country, suggesting that member states experience a learning curve within the EPC. The high heterogeneity in the transfer rates casts some doubts on the practice that consists in relying on filings at the EPO or at the United States Patent and Trademark Office to assess the innovative performance of countries.

Why develop open-source software? The role of non-pecuniary benefits, monetary rewards, and open-source licence type

Sauer, R. M. — 2008-01-11

A review of the basic theory of optimal open-source software contributions points to three key factors affecting the decision to contribute to the open-source development process: non-pecuniary benefits, future expected monetary returns, and open-source licence type. This paper argues that existing large-scale software developer surveys are inadequate for measuring the relative importance of these three factors. Previous econometric studies that collect their own unique datasets also fall short because they generally measure the importance of only one supply factor in isolation. To fill the gap, I specify an estimable dynamic programming model of joint labour supply and open-source participation decisions that can provide empirical estimates of relative importance within a single unified framework of optimal decision-making.

University licensing

Thursby, J. G., Thursby, M. C. — 2008-01-11

Licensing of university inventions to industry has experienced rapid, recent growth. This growth is cited as evidence of university success in technology transfer and it suggests an increasing importance of universities to innovation systems. Concerns have been raised that universities are moving towards applied research and away from fundamental research in efforts to capture licensing income. However, figures on growth in licensing perhaps paint a misleading picture, given the substantial variation in licensing success across universities, scientific fields, and technologies. The paper is organized around the following questions. What is the rationale behind university patenting and licensing? How embryonic are university inventions and how often is further development necessary? What is the record on exclusive versus non-exclusive licensing? What is the record on licensing revenue? What are university licensing goals? What is the role of faculty after a licence is signed? Have faculty been diverted from their traditional role in research?

Technology transfer offices and commercialization of university intellectual property: performance and policy implications

Siegel, D. S., Veugelers, R., Wright, M. — 2008-01-11

The recent increase in the rate of commercialization of intellectual property at US and European universities has important performance and policy implications. We review recent studies of the antecedents and consequences of these activities and then draw some lessons learned for policy-makers. A key conclusion is that universities and regions must formulate and implement coherent and feasible technology transfer/commercialization strategies.

The economics of university research parks

Link, A. N., Scott, J. T. — 2008-01-11

In recent years, there has been a substantial increase in public and private investment in university research parks (URPs). URPs are important as an infrastructural mechanism for the transfer of academic research findings, as a source of knowledge spillovers, and as a catalyst for national and regional economic growth. We present international evidence on the growth of URPs, review the academic literature on URPs, and outline an agenda for additional theoretical and empirical research on this topic.