The paper first reviews how Japan has strengthened the protection of intellectual property rights, focusing on the expansion of the patentable subject matter, the restriction of the possibility of compulsory licensing, stronger deterrence against infringement and the introduction of the doctrine of equivalents.
Many advocates recommend that LDCs should not enforce intellectual property rights.This paper discusses a number of issues in the context of that
debate.
The paper develops a model for analysing the costs and benefits of intellectual property enforcement in LDCs. The North is more productive than the South and is the only source of innovator.
The paper provides an empirical assessment of the effect of national and international knowledge spillovers on innovation at a finely defined sectoral level for six major industrialised countries over the period 1981-1995.
The authors identify three policy instruments governments have at their disposal to affect the power of patent rights to prevent imitation. They develop a simple framework to analyse the effects of changing these policy instruments on ex ante investment in invention in the light of recent concerns about the potential effects of socially undesirable patents.
The main purpose in this paper is to study to what extent accessibility to research and development (R&D) can explain patent production. Results indicate that high accessibility (local) to company R&D has the greatest effect on patent production.
The paper introduces the idea that strong patent protection can lead innovators to rest on their laurels, into a simple tournament based framework. Concentrating on optimal patent protection, the model shows that there is a positive relationship between the ability of the economy (firm) to innovate and how strong patent protection should be.
The paper argues that although patents act as an incentive to innovate, they also can lead the patent holder to rest on his laurels and at the same time discourage some innovators from innovating, reducing knowledge spillovers.
Employing a sample of renowned U.S. inventors that combines biographical detail with information on the patents they received over their careers, the authors highlight the impact of early U.S. patent institutions in providing broad access to economic opportunity and in encouraging trade in new technological knowledge.
The paper investigates the legal framework set by patent laws with respect to the patentability of business methods, contrasting the situation in Europe and the situation in the U.S. It is shown that in praxi business methods have never been excluded from patentability in Europe.