With cumulative innovation and imperfect information about the value of innovations, intellectual property rights can result in hold-up and therefore it may be better not to have them. Extending the basic cumulative innovation model to include `sampling' by second-stage firms, we find that the lower the cost of sampling, or the larger the differential between high and low value second-stage innovations, the more likely it is that a regime without intellectual property rights will be preferable. Thus, technological change which reduces the cost of encountering and trialling new `ideas' implies a reduction in the socially optimal level of rights such as patent and copyright.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number
5022.
Find related papers by JEL classification: L5 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy O3 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change K3 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
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.:
Cited by: (explanations, 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.)