Description
Book SynopsisPatents summarizes four decades of pioneering research by F.M. Scherer on the economics of patent protection. This book is distinguished by concern for the role of patents in a global context and by thorough investigation into the utility of patent counts as instruments for measuring the magnitude and consequences of technological invention. The book also includes a detailed new introduction by F.M. Scherer.
The seminal essays contained within the book are organized around three principal foci: how to identify and shape policies yielding optimal patent protection in domestic and international markets; using patent data to reveal important features of the economy; and interpreting the economic significance of patents as measures of innovation. Explored under the second focus are the relationships of patenting to firm size, market structure, demand, and how inventions flow through the economy to yield productivity gains. The third focus illuminates implications of the highly skewed distribution of individual patent values.
Scholars working on innovation and science, technological change, and law and economics will find this an invaluable and interesting book. It will also appeal to practitioners involved in patent and antitrust matters.
Trade Review'The volume gives the reader the benefits of diagrams, figures and charts to illustrate the text, and it is richly footnoted, very thoroughly indexed, and fine textured throughout. Every paragraph contains specific references, examples, and notes. . . this book is a collection of major contributions to the important array of issues in the economics of patent system. It represents the collection of works on analyzing and modelling methodologies based on the patent data. This volume is a major contribution not only to the history of research in the patent system, but also to the understanding of a good deal of why the concept of patenting has evolved in economics in the global context as it has. . . I would say this is a book for academics, practitioners who have a background in statistical analysis and econometric modelling, and advanced students interested in the concept of patenting and the analysis of patent data.' -- Guldem Gokcek, Prometheus
'Taken together, these papers make accessible a wide range of patent-related economic and policy issues. . . the papers in the present book give a very good exposure to significant issues involving innovation. Both specialists in innovation and general industrial organization economists will find much interesting material in this collection.' -- David Sibley, Journal of Economic Literature
'The Scherer book is an economist's delight. . . this collection is full of thoughtful insights and quirky corrections to accepted stylised facts. . . The overwhelming impression of this work is that researchers like Scherer work hard at thinking about the real issues and then test their ideas rigorously.' -- John Yeabsley, NZ Law Journal
Table of ContentsContents: Introduction Part I: Economic Analysis and Policy 1. The Economics of the Patent System 2. Nordhaus’ Theory of Optimal Patent Life: A Geometric Interpretation 3. Comment on Edmund Kitch 4. The Economics of Human Gene Patents 5. The Pharmaceutical Industry and World Intellectual Property Standards 6. Economic Effects of Strengthening Pharmaceutical Patent Protection in Italy 7. Post-TRIPS Options for Access to Patented Medicines in Developing Nations 8. A Note on Global Welfare in Pharmaceutical Patenting Part II: Using Patent Data to Measure Technological Innovation 9. Firm Size, Market Structure, Opportunity, and the Output of Patented Interventions 10. Corporate Inventive Output, Profits, and Growth 11. Inter-Industry Technology Flows in the United States 12. Demand-Pull and Technological Invention: Schmookler Revisited 13. The Propensity to Patent 14. Technology Flows Matrix Estimation Revisited Part III: What Do the Measures Measure? 15. The Office of Technology Assessment and Forecast Industry Concordance as a Means of Identifying Industry Technology Origins 16. Exploring the Tail of Patent Invention Value Distributions 17. Citation Frequency and the Value of Patented Inventions Part IV: The Road Ahead 18. The Innovation Lottery Index
