Public Disclosure of Patent Applications, R&D, and Welfare

Reiko Aoki and Yossi Spiegel

No 156, Working Papers from Department of Economics, The University of Auckland

Abstract: In Europe and in Japan, patent applications are publicly disclosed after 18 month from the filing date regardless of whether a patent has been or will be registered. In the U.S. in contrast, patent applications are publicly disclosed only when a patent is granted. In this paper we examine the consequences of this difference for (i) firm's R&D and patenting behavior, (ii) consumers' surplus and social welfare, and (iii) the incentives of firms to innovate, in a setting where patent protection is imperfect in the sense that patent applications may be rejected and patents are not always upheld in court. The main conclusions are that public disclosure leads to fewer patent applications and fewer innovations, but for a given number of innovations, it raises the probability that new technologies will reach the product market and thereby enhances consumers' surplus and possibly total welfare as well .

Keywords: R&D; Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1998
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/2292/156

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:auc:wpaper:156

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Department of Economics, The University of Auckland Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Library Digital Development ().