Anticommons and optimal patent policy in a model of sequential innovation

Gastón Llanes () and Stefano Trento ()

UC3M Working papers. Economics from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía

Abstract: When innovation is sequential, the development of new products depends on the access to previous discoveries. As a consequence the patent system affects both the revenues and the cost of the innovator. We construct a model of sequential innovation in which an innovator uses n patented inputs in R&D to invent a new product. We ask three questions: (i) what is the net effect of patents on innovation as technologies become more complex (n increases)? (ii) are patent pools welfare enhancing? (iii) what is the optimal response of patent policy as technological complexity increases? We find that the answers to these questions depend on the degree of complementarity and substitutability between the inputs used in research.

Keywords: Anticommons; Sequential; innovation; Patent; pools; Optimal; patent; policy; Complementary; monopoly; Cross-Licensing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D4 L41 O31 O34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ino, nep-ipr and nep-pr~
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://e-archivo.uc3m.es/rest/api/core/bitstreams ... 2024a9bc5a52/content (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Anticommons and Optimal Patent Policy in a Model of Sequential Innovation (2011)
Working Paper: Anticommons and Optimal Patent Policy in a Model of Sequential Innovation (2009)
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:cte:werepe:we076838

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in UC3M Working papers. Economics from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ana Poveda ().