Innovation-Specific Patent Protection

Angus Chu, Guido Cozzi and Silvia Galli ()

No 09-A010, IEAS Working Paper : academic research from Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

Abstract: This study develops an R&D-based growth model that features both vertical and horizontal innovation to shed some light on the current debate on whether patent protection stimulates or stifles innovation. Specifically, we analyze the growth and welfare effects of patent protection in the form of profit division between sequential innovators along the quality ladder. We show that patent protection has asymmetric effects on vertical innovation (i.e., quality improvement) and horizontal innovation (i.e., variety expansion). Maximizing the incentives for vertical (horizontal) innovation requires a profit-division rule that assigns the entire flow profit to the entrant (incumbent) of a quality ladder. In light of this finding, we argue that in order to properly analyze the growth and welfare implications of patent protection, it is important to firstly disentangle its different effects on vertical and horizontal innovation.

Keywords: economic growth; innovation; intellectual property rights (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E32 O31 O41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2009-10, Revised 2010-03-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-pr~ and nep-mic
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econ.sinica.edu.tw/~econ/pdfPaper/09-A010.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Does intellectual monopoly stimulate or stifle innovation? (2012)
Working Paper: Does intellectual monopoly stimulate or stifle innovation? (2010)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sin:wpaper:09-a010

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IEAS Working Paper : academic research from Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by HsiaoyunLiu ().