Intellectual Property Rights and Innovation: Evidence from the Human Genome

Heidi Williams ()

No 16213, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Do intellectual property (IP) rights on existing technologies hinder subsequent innovation? Using newly-collected data on the sequencing of the human genome by the public Human Genome Project and the private firm Celera, this paper estimates the impact of Celera's gene-level IP on subsequent scientific research and product development. Genes initially sequenced by Celera were held with IP for up to two years, but moved into the public domain once re-sequenced by the public effort. Across a range of empirical specifications, I find evidence that Celera's IP led to reductions in subsequent scientific research and product development on the order of 20 to 30 percent. Taken together, these results suggest that Celera's short-term IP had persistent negative effects on subsequent innovation relative to a counterfactual of Celera genes having always been in the public domain.

JEL-codes: I10 I18 O3 O34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-07
Note: AG EH PR
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

Published as Heidi L. Williams, 2013. "Intellectual Property Rights and Innovation: Evidence from the Human Genome," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(1), pages 1 - 27.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w16213.pdf (application/pdf)

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:nbr:nberwo:16213

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w16213

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().