Appropriability, Patents, and Rates of Innovation in Complex Products Industries

Luigi Marengo (), Corrado Pasquali (), Marco Valente and Giovanni Dosi

LEM Papers Series from Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy

Abstract: The economic theory of intellectual property rights is based on a rather narrow view of both competition and technological knowledge. We suggest some ways of enriching this framework with a more empirically grounded view of both and, by means of a simulation model, we analyze the impact of different property right regimes on the dynamics of a complex product industry, that is an industry where products are complex multi-component objects and competition takes place mainly through differentiation and component innovation. We show that, as the complexity of the product spaces increases, stronger patent regimes yield lower rates of innovation, lower product quality and lower consumers' welfare. localized ones.

Keywords: patents; appropriability of innovation; complex product industries; industrial dynamics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L11 O31 O34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-04-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-cse, nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-pr~, nep-mic and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Journal Article: Appropriability, patents, and rates of innovation in complex products industries (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2009/05

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