The Role of Patent Rights in Mergers: Consolidation in Plant Biotechnology

Alan C. Marco and Gordon Rausser

No 7193, CUDARE Working Papers from University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics

Abstract: Few micro-level empirical papers have addressed the impact of the patent system on industry structure. Using firm-level patent data for public and private firms in plant biotechnology, we develop a measure of patent enforceability. Duration models show that patent statistics are a useful predictor of the timing of merger activity. We find that patent enforceability is an important factor influencing the likelihood of mergers. Mergers in plant biotechnology may be partially motivated by the enforcement of patent rights when firms have overlapping technologies; some of the merger activity may be explained by attempts to avoid mutually blocking technology, as exemplified in the case of Roundup Ready corn.

Keywords: Research; and; Development/Tech; Change/Emerging; Technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57
Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/7193/files/wp071036.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Role of Patent Rights in Mergers: Consolidation in Plant Biotechnology (2008)
Working Paper: The Role of Patent Rights in Mergers: Consolidation in Plant Biotechnology (2007)
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:ags:ucbecw:7193

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.7193

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CUDARE Working Papers from University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().