Intellectual property rights in a quality-ladder model with persistent leadership

Christian Kiedaisch

No 78, ECON - Working Papers from Department of Economics - University of Zurich

Abstract: This article analyzes the effects of intellectual property rights in a quality-ladder model in which incumbent firms preemptively innovate in order to keep their position of leadership. Unlike in models with leapfrogging, granting non-expiring forward protection reduces the rate of innovation and imposing a non-obviousness requirement reduces R&D spending. It is shown that full protection against imitation, granted independently of the size of the lead, maximizes the average innovation rate.

Keywords: Intellectual property rights; persistent leadership; cumulative innovation; preemption; forward protection; non-obviousness requirement; patent policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L40 O31 O34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-ino and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Journal Article: Intellectual property rights in a quality-ladder model with persistent leadership (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zur:econwp:078

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