IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/17573.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Patent Pools and the Direction of Innovation - Evidence from the 19th-century Sewing Machine Industry

Author

Listed:
  • Ryan L. Lampe
  • Petra Moser

Abstract

Patent pools allow a group of firms to combine their patents as if they were a single firm. Theoretical models predict that pools encourage innovation in pool technologies, albeit at the cost of innovation in substitutes. Empirical evidence is scarce because modern pools are too recent to allow empirical analyses. This article examines data on patents and innovations by new firms for a historical pool in the sewing machine industry (1856-1877) to examine effects on innovation. Contrary to theoretical predictions, this analysis suggests that pools may discourage innovation in pool technologies and shift R&D towards technologically inferior substitutes.

Suggested Citation

  • Ryan L. Lampe & Petra Moser, 2011. "Patent Pools and the Direction of Innovation - Evidence from the 19th-century Sewing Machine Industry," NBER Working Papers 17573, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17573
    Note: DAE IO PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w17573.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ryan L. Lampe & Petra Moser, 2009. "Do Patent Pools Encourage Innovation? Evidence from the 19th-Century Sewing Machine Industry," NBER Working Papers 15061, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, December.
    3. Carl Shapiro, 2001. "Navigating the Patent Thicket: Cross Licenses, Patent Pools, and Standard Setting," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 1, pages 119-150, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Bronwyn H. Hall & Adam B. Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 2001. "The NBER Patent Citation Data File: Lessons, Insights and Methodological Tools," NBER Working Papers 8498, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Dequiedt, V. & Versaevel, B., 2004. "Patent pools and the dynamic incentives to R&D," Working Papers 200412, Grenoble Applied Economics Laboratory (GAEL).
    6. Steven Berry & Joel Waldfogel, 2010. "Product Quality And Market Size," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(1), pages 1-31, March.
    7. Jaskold Gabszewicz, J. & Thisse, J. -F., 1979. "Price competition, quality and income disparities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 340-359, June.
    8. Petra Moser, 2005. "How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World's Fairs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1214-1236, September.
    9. Usher, Abbott Payson, 1956. "The United States Patent System: Legal and Economic Conflicts in American Patent History. By Floyd L. Vaughan. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1956. Pp. xvi, 355. $8.50," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(3), pages 412-414, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. David Encaoua & Thierry Madiès, 2012. "Dysfunctions of the patent system and their effects on competition," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00740716, HAL.
    2. Rob Aalbers & Victoria Shestalova & Viktoria Kocsis, 2012. "Innovation policy for directing technical change in the power sector," CPB Discussion Paper 223, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    3. 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.
    4. David Harper, 2014. "Property rights as a complex adaptive system: how entrepreneurship transforms intellectual property structures," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 335-355, April.
    5. repec:hal:wpaper:halshs-00848247 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Lartey, Theophilus & Danso, Albert & Owusu-Agyei, Samuel, 2020. "CEOs' market sentiment and corporate innovation: The role of financial uncertainty, competition and capital intensity," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    7. Leonid Kogan & Dimitris Papanikolaou & Amit Seru & Noah Stoffman, 2017. "Technological Innovation, Resource Allocation, and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(2), pages 665-712.

    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. Nancy Gallini, 2011. "Private agreements for coordinating patent rights: the case of patent pools," ECONOMIA E POLITICA INDUSTRIALE, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2011(3), pages 5-30.
    3. Anderson, Simon P. & Gabszewicz, Jean J., 2006. "The Media and Advertising: A Tale of Two-Sided Markets," Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, in: V.A. Ginsburgh & D. Throsby (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 18, pages 567-614, Elsevier.
    4. Philippe Aghion & Peter Howitt & Susanne Prantl, 2015. "Patent rights, product market reforms, and innovation," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 223-262, September.
    5. Mahdiyeh Entezarkheir & Saeed Moshiri, 2021. "Innovation spillover and merger decisions," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(5), pages 2419-2448, November.
    6. Ryan Lampe & Petra Moser, 2012. "Do Patent Pools Encourage Innovation? Evidence from 20 Industries in the 1930s," NBER Chapters, in: Standards, Patents and Innovations, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Jeffrey P. Clemens & Parker Rogers, 2020. "Demand Shocks, Procurement Policies, and the Nature of Medical Innovation: Evidence from Wartime Prosthetic Device Patents," CESifo Working Paper Series 8781, CESifo.
    8. 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.
    9. Mariana Cunha & António Osório & Ricardo Ribeiro, 2016. "Endogenous product design and quality with rationally inattentive consumers," Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) 03, Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
    10. Chu, Angus C. & Cozzi, Guido & Galli, Silvia, 2012. "Does intellectual monopoly stimulate or stifle innovation?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 727-746.
    11. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899.
    12. Tesoriere, Antonio & Balletta, Luigi, 2017. "A dynamic model of open source vs proprietary R&D," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 221-239.
    13. Jay Pil Choi & Heiko Gerlach, 2015. "Patent pools, litigation, and innovation," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(3), pages 499-523, September.
    14. Ngo Van Long & Zhuang Miao, 2020. "Multiple‐quality Cournot oligopoly and the role of market size," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 932-952, October.
    15. Ralph Siebert, 2013. "Are Ex Ante and Ex Post Licensing Agreements Useful Instruments to Lessen Uncertainty in R&D?," CESifo Working Paper Series 4535, CESifo.
    16. Chu, Angus C. & Cozzi, Guido & Galli, Silvia, 2012. "Does intellectual monopoly stimulate or stifle innovation?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 727-746.
    17. Simon P. Anderson, 2005. "Regulation of Television advertising," Virginia Economics Online Papers 363, University of Virginia, Department of Economics.
    18. Petra Moser, 2016. "Patents and Innovation in Economic History," NBER Working Papers 21964, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Michael J. Andrews, 2020. "Local Effects of Land Grant Colleges on Agricultural Innovation and Output," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of Research and Innovation in Agriculture, pages 139-175, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Aghion, Philippe & Akcigit, Ufuk & Howitt, Peter, 2014. "What Do We Learn From Schumpeterian Growth Theory?," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 515-563, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
    • K21 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Antitrust Law
    • L10 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - General
    • L24 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Contracting Out; Joint Ventures
    • L4 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies
    • N61 - Economic History - - Manufacturing and Construction - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
    • N81 - Economic History - - Micro-Business History - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:17573. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.