Enrico Santarelli () (University of Bologna, Department of Economics; ENCORE, Amsterdam; Max Planck Institute of Economics Jena, Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy) Francesca Lotti (Bank of Italy, Economic Research Department)
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The aim of this paper is to test whether patent-based indicators are still reliable measures of innovativeness in light of organizational changes in the field of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection and the regulatory reforms already under way respectively at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the European Patent Office (EPO). For most high-tech industries, patents represent an outcome of the production process and their number can be taken as a proxy for a firm's ability to improve its productivity growth and profitability. The case study reported here concerns the biotechnology industry in Italy, whose firms, by definition, have Intellectual Property (IP) activities in their portfolios. For this purpose, we use a unique data set which collects balance sheet items and patent information from EPO and USPTO. After linking firms' financial and production data with the patent information, we estimate a modified knowledge production function in which the dependent variable is alternatively (labor) productivity growth and profitability. Our findings show that only patents with the EPO, along with larger firm size, have a statistically significant relationship with productivity growth and profitability. This suggests that firms pursue different strategies when patenting with the USPTO and the EPO, and that this difference reflects statutory changes made to the former during the relevant period.
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Paper provided by Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Max-Planck-Institute of Economics, Thueringer Universitaets- und Landesbibliothek in its series Jena Economic Research Papers in Economics with number
2007-020.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Wuyts, S.H.K. & Colombo, M.G. & Dutta, S. & Nooteboom, B., 2004.
"Empirical Tests Of Optimal Cognitive Distance,"
Research Paper
ERS-2004-007-ORG Revision, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus Uni.
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