Competition, Imitation, and R&D Productivity in a Growth Model with Industry-Specific Patent Protection

Mosel Malte
Additional contact information
Mosel Malte: University of Passau and Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law

Review of Law & Economics, 2011, vol. 7, issue 2, 601-652

Abstract: Recent empirical studies suggest a need for a flexible patent regime responding to industry differences. In practice, industry-specific modifications of patent length already exist but lack theoretical foundation. This paper intends to make up for this neglect by scrutinizing in what direction industry characteristics influence optimal patent length. It is found that patents ought to be shorter, the more intense competition, the higher R&D productivity, and the more intricate reverse engineering in an industry are. Unlike similar Schumpeterian growth models, this model assumes Cournot competition and introduces an empirically substantiated measure of industry differences in the ability to catch up with a technological leader. It is found that for most empirically plausible cases the familiar inverted-U relation between patent length and growth carries over to the Cournot set-up.

Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.2202/1555-5879.1524 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
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:bpj:rlecon:v:7:y:2011:i:2:n:10

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/rle/html

DOI: 10.2202/1555-5879.1524

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Law & Economics is currently edited by Francesco Parisi

More articles in Review of Law & Economics from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().