EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Why Challenge the Ivory Tower? New Evidence on the Basicness of Academic Patents*

Dirk Czarnitzki, Katrin Hussinger and Cédric Schneider

Kyklos, 2009, vol. 62, issue 4, 488-499

Abstract: While often presumed in academic literature and policy discussions there is little empirical evidence showing that academic patents protect more basic inventions than corporate patents. This study provides new evidence on the basicness of academic patents using German professor patents linked to patent opposition data from the European Patent Office (EPO). Patent oppositions are the most important mechanism by which the validity of patents filed at the EPO can be challenged. Controlling for patent value, asymmetric information and diverging expectations between the opposition parties, the likelihood of a potentially litigious situation and the relative costs of opposition versus settlement, we find that academic patents are opposed less frequently than a control group of corporate patents. This suggests that academic patents cover rather basic inventions with a low immediate commercial value not threatening current returns of potential plaintiffs. The effect is weaker for academic patents filed in collaboration with the business sector, which suggests that those patents are evaluated as more applied by owners of potentially rival technologies.

Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6435.2009.00447.x

Related works:
Working Paper: Why challenge the ivory tower? New evidence on the basicness of academic patents (2009) Downloads
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:bla:kyklos:v:62:y:2009:i:4:p:488-499

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0023-5962

Access Statistics for this article

Kyklos is currently edited by Rene L. Frey

More articles in Kyklos from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-31
Handle: RePEc:bla:kyklos:v:62:y:2009:i:4:p:488-499