IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v27y2013i1p23-44.html

Patents and Innovation: Evidence from Economic History

Author

Listed:
  • Petra Moser

Abstract

What is the optimal system of intellectual property rights to encourage innovation? Empirical evidence from economic history can help to inform important policy questions that have been difficult to answer with modern data: For example, does the existence of strong patent laws encourage innovation? What proportion of innovations is patented? Is this share constant across industries and over time? How does patenting affect the diffusion of knowledge? How effective are prominent mechanisms, such as patent pools and compulsory licensing, that have been proposed to address problems with the patent system? This essay summarizes results of existing research and highlights promising areas for future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Petra Moser, 2013. "Patents and Innovation: Evidence from Economic History," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(1), pages 23-44, Winter.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:27:y:2013:i:1:p:23-44
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.27.1.23
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.27.1.23
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bittlingmayer, George, 1988. "Property Rights, Progress, and the Aircraft Patent Agreement," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 227-248, April.
    2. Dequiedt, Vianney & Versaevel, Bruno, 2013. "Patent pools and dynamic R&D incentives," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 59-69.
    3. Allen,Robert C., 2009. "The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521868273, January.
    4. Boldrin,Michele & Levine,David K., 2010. "Against Intellectual Monopoly," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521127264, January.
    5. Abramovitz,Moses, 1989. "Thinking about Growth," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521333962, January.
    6. Panle Jia & Pinelopi K. Goldberg & Shubham Chaudhuri, 2006. "Estimating the Effects of Global Patent Protection in Pharmaceuticals: A Case Study of Quinolones in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1477-1514, December.
    7. Aoki, Reiko & Nagaoka, Sadao, 2004. "The Consortium Standard and Patent Pools," Economic Review, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 55(4), pages 345-357, October.
    8. Wesley M. Cohen & Richard R. Nelson & John P. Walsh, 2000. "Protecting Their Intellectual Assets: Appropriability Conditions and Why U.S. Manufacturing Firms Patent (or Not)," NBER Working Papers 7552, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. James J. Anton & Dennis A. Yao, 2004. "Little Patents and Big Secrets: Managing Intellectual Property," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 35(1), pages 1-22, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Petra Moser, 2012. "Patent Laws and Innovation: Evidence from Economic History," NBER Working Papers 18631, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Gabrovski, Miroslav, 2015. "The Patent System as a Tool for Eroding Market Power," MPRA Paper 81330, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 10 Sep 2017.
    3. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/dambferfb7dfprc9m0533i43h is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Michele Boldrin & David K. Levine, 2013. "The Case against Patents," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(1), pages 3-22, Winter.
    5. Ruiz-Aliseda, Francisco, 2012. "Innovation Beyond Patents: Technological Complexity as a Protection against Imitation," CEPR Discussion Papers 8870, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Nancy Gallini, 2017. "Do patents work? Thickets, trolls and antibiotic resistance," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 50(4), pages 893-926, November.
    7. Ryan L. Lampe & Petra Moser, 2012. "Do Patent Pools Encourage Innovation? Evidence from 20 U.S. Industries under the New Deal," NBER Working Papers 18316, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Bottomley, Sean, 2014. "Patents and the first industrial revolution in the United States, France and Britain, 1700-1850," IAST Working Papers 14-14, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    9. repec:osf:socarx:qzmf8_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Crass, Dirk & Garcia Valero, Francisco & Pitton, Francesco & Rammer, Christian, 2016. "Protecting innovation through patents and trade secrets: Determinants and performance impacts for firms with a single innovation," ZEW Discussion Papers 16-061, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    11. Nagler, Markus & Sorg, Stefan, 2019. "The Disciplinary Effect of Post-Grant Review," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 155, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    12. Saurav Roychoudhury & Anuj Bhowmik & Srobonti Chattopadhyay, 2024. "Innovation and governance," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 48(1), pages 78-106, March.
    13. Fontana, Roberto & Nuvolari, Alessandro & Shimizu, Hiroshi & Vezzulli, Andrea, 2013. "Reassessing patent propensity: Evidence from a dataset of R&D awards, 1977–2004," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(10), pages 1780-1792.
    14. Ponce, Carlos J., 2011. "Knowledge disclosure as intellectual property rights protection," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 418-434.
    15. M. D. Beneish & C. R. Harvey & A. Tseng & P. Vorst, 2022. "Unpatented innovation and merger synergies," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 706-744, June.
    16. Illoong Kwon, 2008. "Patent Portfolio Race and Secrecy," Discussion Papers 08-05, University at Albany, SUNY, Department of Economics.
    17. Barankay, Iwan & Contigiani, Andrea & Hsu, David, 2018. "Trade Secrets and Innovation: Evidence from the “Inevitable Disclosure†Doctrine," CEPR Discussion Papers 13077, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Elisabetta Ottoz & Franco Cugno, 2008. "Patent--Secret Mix in Complex Product Firms," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 10(1), pages 142-158.
    19. Bronwyn H. Hall, 2024. "Patents, innovation, and development," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(1-2), pages 17-42, March.
    20. Patricia Laurens & Christian Le Bas & Antoine Schoen, 2019. "Worldwide IP coverage of patented inventions in large pharma firms: to what extent do the internationalisation of R&D and firm strategy matter?," Post-Print hal-01725229, HAL.
    21. Xiaoyang Zhao, 2019. "Patenting Or Secret? The Interaction Between Leading Firms And Following Firms Based On Evolutionary Game Theory And Multi-Agent Simulation," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 23(07), pages 1-22, October.
    22. Bernhard Ganglmair & Imke Reimers, 2019. "Visibility of Technology and Cumulative Innovation: Evidence from Trade Secrets Laws," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2019_119v1, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K11 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Property Law
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:27:y:2013:i:1:p:23-44. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.