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An Introduction to the Law and Economics of Intellectual Property
Abstract
Although economists have written on topics of intellectual property for a long time, the impact of economics on public policy in this area has been slight, especially as compared to the influence of professional writings in areas such as antitrust and taxation. We believe that too few of the profession's resources have been devoted to these issues and that, of those resources that have been employed, too few have been devoted to empirical analyses. We hope that this introductory essay and the three papers that follow will stimulate interest in this subject. This introductory essay first describes some of the basic economic tradeoffs involved in intellectual property law, and then describes the framework of the law in the six areas described above: patent, copyright, semiconductor protection, trademark, trade secret, and misappropriation. It is intended both to provide thumbnail descriptions of the various intellectual property regimes to economists working in this area and to indicate where additional economic research might be useful.
... Schumpeterian growth theory posits innovation as the primary driver of long-term economic growth as it fosters a dynamic process of creative destruction through technological progress and innovation (Schumpeter, 1934). Robust IPR protection incentivizes inventors or innovators by enabling them to appropriate the returns on risky and costly investments (Aghion et al., 2001;Besen & Raskind, 1991;Gallini, 2002). As such, IPR protection is seen as a critical mechanism not only for promoting innovation-led growth, but also for enhancing the competitiveness of economies in the global marketplace. ...
Discussions around the importance of intellectual property (IP) intensified at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as countries raced to secure IP-protected goods (e.g., vaccines and medical equipment) necessary to respond quickly and adequately to the threat of the virus’ spread. Building on the growing strand of the literature that reexamines IP’s effect on an array of social and economic outcomes, this paper examines the relationship between quantitative (patents and trademarks) and qualitative (IP protection) measures of IP, on the one hand, and manufacturing growth, on the other hand, accounting for the presence of nonlinearities. Using a two-step system generalized method of moments (SGMM) approach on a panel dataset of 81 countries spanning the post-1995 TRIPS Agreement period, our estimates show that these alternative measures of IP have differential and nonlinear effects on manufacturing growth. In particular, patents have a positive significant marginal effect on manufacturing growth past a minimum scale, whereas trademarks do not have a significant effect. In contrast, stronger IPR protection has a positive effect only up to a critical level of IPR protection, implying that “too much” IPR protection can stifle growth-inducing competing innovation. The paper concludes with a brief discussion on the mechanisms through which IP may contribute to manufacturing growth, and on some policies, which may help realize this potential. Broadly, this paper speaks to academic and policy discussions surrounding optimal IP enforcement and the benefits and consequences of IP.
... Generally, appearance, characters, and sound are taken into consideration during the test [4]. The repetition rate of characters is convenient to assess, and a TM can be pronounced differently among regions. ...
The detection of image similarity is critical to trademark (TM) legal registration and court judgment on infringement cases. Meanwhile, there are great challenges regarding the annotation of similar pairs and model generalization on rapidly growing data when deep learning is introduced into the task. The research idea of metric learning is naturally suited for the task where similarity of input is given instead of classification, but current methods are not targeted at the task and should be upgraded. To address these issues, loss-driven model training is introduced, and a hybrid-margin softmax (HMS) is proposed exactly based on the peculiarity of TM images. Two additive penalty margins are attached to the softmax to expand the decision boundary and develop greater tolerance for slight differences between similar TM images. With the HMS, a Siamese neural network (SNN) as the feature extractor is further penalized and the discrimination ability is improved. Experiments demonstrate that the detection model trained on HMS can make full use of small numbers of training data and has great discrimination ability on bigger quantities of test data. Meanwhile, the model can reach high performance with less depth of SNN. Extensive experiments indicate that the HMS-driven model trained completely on TM data generalized well on the face recognition (FR) task, which involves another type of image data.
... IPR refers to several legal arrangements including patents, copyrights and trade secrets (Besen and Raskind, 1991). The history of patents, for example, dates back to the Statue of Monopolies in Britain (1623), or even to monopolies granted in Venice (1474) (Moser, 2012;Scotchmer, 2004). ...
Perairan Indonesia memiliki potensi sumber daya alam yang sangat besar, dengan 13.465 pulau, luas perairan laut sebesar 3.257.483 km2, dan perairan umum daratan Indonesia hingga 13,85 juta ha yang terdiri atas sungai, danau alam (natural lakes), dan danau buatan (man made lakes) atau waduk. Sehingga sumber daya ikan di perairan Indonesia menjadi salah satu mata pencaharian utama bangsa Indonesia sejak dahulu untuk menuju kemakmuran. Salah satu alat tangkap tradisional yang sangat umum dikenal di kalangan nelayan adalah bubu, terbuat dari bambu yang berupa jebakan dan bersifat pasif. Bubu berbentuk kurungan (Trap) sehingga ikan tidak dapat keluar. Alat tangkap ikan tradisional Bubu ini merupakan salah satu bentuk inovasi pengetahuan tradisional karya bangsa Indonesia, namun Undang-Undang paten yang bertujuan memberikan perlindungan hukum atas suatu penemuan karya intelektual masih mengadopsi Hukum atas Kekayaan Intelektual dari negara-negara maju sehingga belum adanya perlindungan hukum yang optimal terhadap pengetahuan tradisional khususnya alat tangkap tradisional ikan Bubu. Dari permasalahan tersebut, artikel ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis bagaimana perlindungan hukum dan mekanisme permohonan paten atas pengetahuan tradisional khususnya alat tangkap ikan tradisional Bubu di Indonesia menurut Undang-Undang No. 13 Tahun 2016 tentang Paten. Penelitian ini akan menggunakan metode penelitian hukum normatif dengan pendekatan perundang-undangan, konseptual, dan sejarah. Hasil penelitian yang dilakukan menunjukkan bahwa adanya perbedaan konsep yang menjiwai hukum kekayaan intelektual antara hukum yang berkembang di masyarakat dan hukum kekayaan intelektual dalam perspektif negara maju. Konsep hukum adat yang menjiwai pengetahuan tradisional bersifat komunal, turun-temurun, tunai dan terbuka sangat bertolak belakang dengan konsep HKI yang bersifat eksklusif.
The objective of this article is to analyze the process of institutionalization of Intellectual Property (IP) in the Pacific Alliance (PA) from its origin in 2011 to 2020. This organization is made up of four countries: Colombia, Chile, Mexico and Peru. The theoretical foundation is located in the theory of neo-institutionalism, which grounds the analysis of isomorphism and institutional immersion regarding international agreements and political factions within the economic bloc. The question of this work is: What kinds of isomorphism and institutional immersion prevail in the IP documents assumed by the countries of the PA from 2011 to 2020? Two groups of documents were analyzed: the first group is made up of the documents that constitute the regulatory framework of IP in the international context, and the second group is made up of the documents that have been approved by the PA in this field. In the international context, seventeen treaties on intellectual property are analyzed under the scheme of the three types of isomorphism: coercive, mimetic and normative. Since its foundation, the PA has signed 27 documents related to intellectual property, which are distributed in the three types of isomorphism, where eight belong to the mimetic, seven coercive, ten normative and two mimetic and normative. Another concept that is analyzed is that of institutional immersion; under this scheme, seventeen documents signed by the Pacific Alliance are reviewed, where thirteen seek to promote cooperation, and five are mandated. It was found that mimicry maintains a strong influence in international intellectual property agreements; this is the result of institutional weakness; weak institutions seek to imitate the most successful ones, but it is also a consequence of tendencies to promote international cooperation. The continuation of this work should be aimed at explaining the influence of the institutionalization of intellectual property on the innovation indicators of the PA.
We investigate whether strengthened legal protection of trade secrets increases the likelihood of a firm being acquired. Stronger protection can make a firm more attractive for acquisition because of better safeguarding of trade secrets, but it may also increase information asymmetries that discourage potential acquirers. Using the staggered implementation of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act in the United States, we show that stronger trade secret protection increases the likelihood of being acquired but also changes firms’ acquisition strategies more broadly depending on the distance between acquirer and target. Compared with domestic acquirers, foreign acquirers are only half as likely to make an acquisition, and they prefer to acquire minority rather than majority stakes. Both domestic and foreign acquirers are more likely to pursue stepwise acquisitions of a target as protection increases, consistent with a real options rationale. Further investigation suggests that, whereas increased trade secret protection increases information asymmetries for all acquirers, foreign acquirers as well as domestic acquirers located further away from a target are disproportionately affected.
Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/stsc.2023.0066 .
This study examined Chinese A‐share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2016 to 2020 to explore the relationship between regional culture of integrity (COI) and enterprise total factor productivity (TFP) and the internal mechanism of regional COI on TFP. The findings showed that regional COI is conducive to promotion of TFP. The mechanism test revealed that optimizing the business environment, promoting corporate technological innovation, and reducing transaction costs are three essential mechanisms. Further, the results indicated that the enhancement effect of regional COI on TFP is more significant in non‐SOEs and enterprises with high financing constraints.
Background:
Medical devices can seek patent term extensions (PTEs), which extend market exclusivity to compensate for delays related to clinical trials and regulatory review. Pharmaceutical companies commonly use PTEs, but their use by medical device companies has not been clear.
Research design and methods:
We examined the use of PTEs by medical device companies between 1984 and 2024 using a database published in the Federal Register and a list published by the Patent and Trademark Office.
Results:
Only 178 medical device submissions were linked to a PTE application. They were mostly concentrated in 116 product codes associated with 15 medical specialties; nearly half were associated with cardiovascular devices. Numbers increased significantly in the past decade. Successful applications restored 987 days on average.
Conclusions:
The patent restoration opportunity appears underutilized. It is unclear whether some companies do not recognize the opportunity it promises, or whether it does not meet their needs. Different business features and marketing strategies in device versus pharmaceutical industries may decrease the usefulness of the PTE program for these types of medical products. However, the finding that a small subset of manufacturers operating in competitive markets adopted patent extension strategies more commonly suggests a significant competitive advantage when competition increases.
This chapter focuses on the core element of the digital economy, data, and discusses how the concept of property has come under new conditions in this context. It discusses the “bundles of rights” approach and explains possible shifts among the interests of individuals, companies and the level of the economy. A separate section is dedicated to the question of what can be understood by “sharing economy” in the digital age, distinguishes the respective business models from forms of collaborative economy and highlights the crucial success factors. Finally, the chapter deals with the question of what these developments mean for citizens and for the regulator.
The Uneasy Case for Copy-right: A Study of Copyright in Books, Photo-I:I(1rv(1.r(l 9! copies, and Computer Programs
- S Breyer
Breyer, S., “The Uneasy Case for Copy-right: A Study of Copyright in Books, Photo-I:I(1rv(1.r(l 9! copies, and Computer Programs, Law R(. Ul(’Zl’, 1970, 84, 281-351
Trade-marked Ceneric Words
- R H Folsom
- R H Teply
Folsom, R. H., and R. H. Teply, “Trade-marked Ceneric Words,” Yale Lazu journal, 1980, 89, 1323-1359