Per un pugno di dollari: A first look at the price elasticity of patents

Gaétan de Rassenfosse and Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potter ()

No 07-022.RS, Working Papers CEB from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles

Abstract: This paper analyzes the role of patent filing fees requested by the member states of the European Patent Convention (EPC). We provide a first empirical evidence showing that the fee elasticity of the demand for priority applications is negative and significant. Given the strong variation in absolute fees and in fees per capita across countries, this result witnesses a suboptimal treatment of inventors across European countries and suggests that fees should be considered as an integral part of an IP policy, especially in the current context of worrying backlogs. In addition, we show that the transfer rate of domestic priority filings to the EPO increases with the duration of membership to the EPO and the GDP per capita of a country, suggesting that member states experience a learning curve within the EPC. The high heterogeneity in the transfer rates casts some doubts on the practice that consists in relying on filings at the EPO or at the USPTO to assess innovative performance of countries.

Keywords: fees; patent filing; price elasticity. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O30 O31 O38 O57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 p.
Date: 2007
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec, nep-ino, nep-ipr and nep-pr~
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (58)

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Journal Article: Per un pugno di dollari: a first look at the price elasticity of patents (2007)
Working Paper: Per un Pugno di Dollari: A first Look at the Price Elasticity of Patents (2007)
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