IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

Do Stronger Patents Induce More Innovation? Evidence from the 1988 Japanese Patent Law Reforms

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Mariko Sakakibara
  • Lee Branstetter
Registered author(s):

    Abstract

    Does an expansion of patent scope induce more innovative effort by firms? This article provides evidence on this question by examining firm responses to the Japanese patent reforms of 1988. Interviews with practitioners suggest the reforms significantly expanded the scope of patent rights in Japan, but that the average response in terms of additional R&D effort and innovative output was quite modest. Interviews also suggest that firm organizational structure is an important determinant of the level of response. Econometric analysis using Japanese and U.S. patent data on 307 Japanese firms confirms that the magnitude of the response is quite small.

    Download Info

    If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w7066.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 7066.

    as
    in new window

    Length:
    Date of creation: Apr 1999
    Publication status: published as Sakakibara, Mariko and Lee Branstetter. "Do Stronger Patents Reduce More Innovation? Evidence From The 1998 Japanese Patent Law Reforms," Rand Journal of Economics, 2001, v32(1,Spring), 77-100.
    Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7066
    Note: PR
    Contact details of provider: Postal:
    National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.

    Phone: 617-868-3900
    Web page: http://www.nber.org
    Email:


    More information through EDIRC

    Keywords:

    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.:

    as
    in new window


    1. Suzanne Scotchmer & Jerry Green, 1990. "Novelty and Disclosure in Patent Law," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(1), pages 131-146, Spring.
    2. Merges, Robert P. & Nelson, Richard R., 1994. "On limiting or encouraging rivalry in technical progress: The effect of patent scope decisions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 1-24, September.
    3. Paul Klemperer, 1990. "How Broad Should the Scope of Patent Protection Be?," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(1), pages 113-130, Spring.
    4. Nancy T. Gallini, 1992. "Patent Policy and Costly Imitation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 23(1), pages 52-63, Spring.
    5. Janusz A. Ordover, 1991. "A Patent System for Both Diffusion and Exclusion," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 43-60, Winter.
    6. Suzanne Scotchmer, 1996. "Protecting Early Innovators: Should Second-Generation Products Be Patentable?," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(2), pages 322-331, Summer.
    7. Tom Lee & Louis L. Wilde, 1980. "Market Structure and Innovation: A Reformulation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 94(2), pages 429-436.
    8. Ricardo J. Caballero & Adam B. Jaffe, 1993. "How High are the Giants' Shoulders: An Empirical Assessment of Knowledge Spillovers and Creative Destruction in a Model of Economic Growth," NBER Chapters,in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1993, Volume 8, pages 15-86 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Richard Gilbert & Carl Shapiro, 1990. "Optimal Patent Length and Breadth," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(1), pages 106-112, Spring.
    10. Hoshi, Takeo & Kashyap, Anil K., 1990. "Evidence on q and investment for Japanese firms," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 371-400, December.
    11. Himmelberg, Charles P & Petersen, Bruce C, 1994. "R&D and Internal Finance: A Panel Study of Small Firms in High-Tech Industries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 76(1), pages 38-51, February.
    12. Howard F. Chang, 1995. "Patent Scope, Antitrust Policy, and Cumulative Innovation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 26(1), pages 34-57, Spring.
    13. Cohen, Wesley M. & Goto, Akira & Nagata, Akiya & Nelson, Richard R. & Walsh, John P., 2002. "R&D spillovers, patents and the incentives to innovate in Japan and the United States," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(8-9), pages 1349-1367, December.
    14. Scherer, F M, 1972. "Nordhaus' Theory of Optimal Patent Life: A Geometric Reinterpretation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(3), pages 422-427, June.
    15. Adam B. Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 1996. "Flows of Knowledge from Universities and Federal Labs: Modeling the Flowof Patent Citations Over Time and Across Institutional and Geographic Boundari," NBER Working Papers 5712, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Carmen Matutes & Pierre Regibeau & Katharine Rockett, 1996. "Optimal Patent Design and the Diffusion of Innovations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(1), pages 60-83, Spring.
    17. Jean O. Lanjouw & Iain Cockburn, 2000. "Do Patents Matter?: Empirical Evidence after GATT," NBER Working Papers 7495, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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

    as
    in new window


    Cited by:

    1. Joel Blit & Mauricio Zelaya, 2015. "Do Firms Respond to Stronger Patent Protection by Doing More R&D?," Working Papers 1501, University of Waterloo, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2015.
    2. Emmanuel Duguet & Claire Lelarge, 2012. "Does Patenting Increase the Private Incentives to Innovate? A Microeconometric Analysis," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 107-108, pages 201-238.
    3. Simona Gamba, 2016. "The Effect of Intellectual Property Rights on Domestic Innovation in the Pharmaceutical Sector," CESifo Working Paper Series 6004, CESifo Group Munich.
    4. Yi Qian, 2011. "Counterfeiters: Foes or Friends? How Do Counterfeits Affect Different Product Quality Tiers?," NBER Working Papers 16785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Yi Qian, 2010. "Are National Patent Laws the Blossoming Rain?," NBER Working Papers 16295, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

    Access and download statistics

    When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7066. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ()

    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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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

    This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.