EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Do Patents Matter?: Empirical Evidence after GATT

Jean Lanjouw and Iain Cockburn

No 7495, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Since the late 1980s the global intellectual property rights (IPR) system has been strengthening dramatically as much of the developing world introduces patent protection for new drug products. This may lead to more research on drugs to address developing country needs. As there are identifiable differences in the drug demands of these countries as compared to those already offering such protection the situation offers a unique opportunity to examine the incentive role of patent protection. We use new survey data from India, the results of interviews with industry, government and multinational institutions, and measures of R&D activity constructed from a variety of statistical sources to determine trends in the allocation of research to products specific to developing country markets. There is some, although limited, evidence of an increase in the mid- to late 1980s which appears to have leveled off in the 1990s. In interpreting the trends we examine factors that might enhance, or dampen, a firm's responsiveness to the availability of product patents. The picture presented here provides a baseline' against which future research activity can be compared once the new global patent regime is fully established and uncertainty about its implementation is resolved.

JEL-codes: D21 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ind, nep-ino, nep-law and nep-tid
Note: PR
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (29)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w7495.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:7495

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w7495

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 ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7495