intellectual property

The existing literature on the sources and nature of productivity growth during the early industrialization stages of U.S. has identified the combination of intellectual property rights (IPRs) with a large middle class and broad participation in markets as explanations for the extraordinary level and growth of patenting. The paper considers whether these factors could play a role in the contemporaneous evolution of innovation in a broad cross section of countries today.

The paper attempts to explain knowledge production in Swedish functional regions as measured by the number of patent applications. Results show that the patent stock of a region contains much of the information needed in order to explain current patenting activity.

Using patents per capita (patent intensity) in a metropolitan area as a measure of innovation, the authors examine the role of knowledge spillovers on innovations in metropolitan areas. Findings indicate that patent intensity is positively related to the number of jobs per square mile (employment density) of metropolitan areas.

The paper searches for evidence of rivalry between academic patenting and scientific research in a panel of 1323 researchers along 30 years. Results show that the
occurrence of a patent is positively associated with the quality of previous and the quantity of later scientific publications.

The paper estimates the diffusion and obsolescence of technological knowledge by technological field, country and type of institutions that generates it. Using a quasi-structured model, the authors test whether the observed processes of knowledge diffusion and obsolescence reflect the specific institutional mechanism generating them.

The authors examine the underlying economics of the market for ideas from a positive and normative perspective. They highlight recent research by ourselves and others challenging the notion that government awards of monopoly through patents and copyright are ?the wy to provide appropriate incentives for innovation.

The study reports on the analysis of annual reports from 14 listed companies in Spain over a five-year period, from 1998 to 2002. Companies in the sample are selected on the basis of their knowledge-based assets and incentives to report on Intellectual capital.

The authors study the structure of the spatial inventor networks in Sweden by examining the residence of inventors and coinventors in Swedish patent applications to the European Patent Office. Findings incicate that spatial affinity is strongly influenced by the general size of the nodes, as measured by population.

The authors describe the most relevant intellectual property right regulation of software in Europe on legal protection of computer programs, the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society, and the proposal for a directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions.

The increasing use of patents to protect inventions by businesses and public research organisations is closely connected to recent evolutions in innovation processes. The paper looks at patent trends, changes and policies throughout OECD countries.