Flowers of Invention: The Economic Impacts of Patent Rights

How do patent rights affect innovation and downstream production? Patent protection was introduced for plant biotechnology in the United States in 1985, and it affected crops differentially depending on their reproductive structures. Exploiting this unique feature of plant flower structure and a new dataset of crop-specific technology development, I find that the introduction of patent rights increased the development of novel plant varieties. Technology development was driven by a rapid increase in private sector research investment, was accompanied by positive spillover effects on innovation in certain non-biological agricultural technologies, and led to an increase in crop yields. Patent rights, however, may come with potentially significant costs to the consumers of technology and distortions to downstream production. Nevertheless, despite higher spending on seeds, US counties that were more exposed to the change in patent law because of their crop composition experienced an increase in agricultural land values and profits. Taken together, the results suggest that the prospect of patent protection spurred innovation and increased downstream productivity and profits.