 Patent Breadth, Patent Life and the Pace of Technological ImprovementTed O'Donoghue, Suzanne Scotchmer, and Jacques-Franois Thisse.
No 95-242, Economics Working Papers from University of California at Berkeley Abstract: In active investment climates where firms sequentially improve each other's products, a patent can terminate either because it expires or because a noninfringing innovation displaces it in the market. The patent breadth and patent life together determine which of these occurs first. We distinguish "lagging" breadth, which protects against imitation, from "leading" breadth, which protects against new improved products. We show that if ideas for improvements are frequent then leading breadth is a necessary supplement to lagging breadth. We compare two types of patent policy with leading breadth: (i) patents are finite but very broad, so that the effective life of a patent coincides with its statutory life, and (ii) patents are long but narrow, so that the effective life of a patent ends when a better product replaces it. The former policy improves the diffusion of new products, but the latter has lower R&D; costs. Date: 1995-10-01 There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucb:calbwp:95-242 Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Economics Working Papers from University of California at Berkeley University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA USA. Contact information at EDIRC. |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.