Biotechnology Inventions: What Can We Learn From Patents

Daniel Johnson ()

Working Papers from Wellesley College - Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper explores several characteristics of patents in the biotechnology field, comparing and contrasting them to patents in other fields of research. We find that biotechnology patents face a longer lag between application and grant date, and their secrecy would be heavily affected if legislation were to permit publication 18 months after application. They are highly concentrated geographically, as well as in industrial origin, and are used most heavily in the health sector, but have a wider spread in use than in origin. They use many more (and much more recent) references than the average patent, with a special weight on academic or scientific literature, foreign patents, and a tight circle of research fields. While they are not cited frequently on average, their use as germplasm is rising. Future research should focus on the questions that have been uncovered.

Keywords: RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT; INNOVATIONS; PROPERTY RIGHTS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O31 O34 Q16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:fth:wecoec:99-8

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Wellesley College - Department of Economics U.S.A.; Wellesley College, Department of Economics. Wellesley, Massachusetts 02181. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Thomas Krichel ().