Search Results
Working Paper
An empirical look at software patents
U.S. legal changes have made it easier to obtain patents on inventions that use software. Software patents have grown rapidly and now comprise 15 percent of all patents. They are acquired primarily by large manufacturing firms in industries known for strategic patenting; only 5 percent belong to software publishers. The very large increase in software patent propensity over time is not adequately explained by changes in R&D investments, employment of computer programmers, or productivity growth. The residual increase in patent propensity is consistent with a sizeable rise in the cost ...
Journal Article
Innovation: Is the Eighth District catching up with the nation?
The degree of innovation in the Eighth District has lagged the rest of the nation over the past two decades. In one area, however, the District is beginning to catch up.
Newsletter
Patents: protecting inventors and the public good
Patent rights are becoming increasingly controversial in areas such as pharmaceuticals and genetics. Should the public good come before the private gain of new product inventors or developers? The May 2010 Newsletter tackles this issue.
Journal Article
Patent reform: a mixed blessing for the U.S. economy?
The 1980s represented a period of dramatic change in the design and enforcement of U.S. intellectual property law. Many of these changes were adopted in the hopes of stimulating private research and development and improving the technological competitiveness of American industries. This article examines the effects of an especially important aspect of these changes: many more inventions qualify for patent protection than before. While it seems logical that making patents easier to obtain will encourage more inventive activity, economic analysis reveals this is not always true, and it is less ...
Working Paper
Patentability, industry structure, and innovation.
To qualify for a patent, an invention must be new, useful, and nonobvious. This paper presents a model of sequential innovation in which industry structure is endogenous and a standard of patentability determines the proportion of all inventions that qualify for protection. There is a unique patentability standard, or inventive step, that maximizes the rate of innovation by maximizing the number of firms engaged in R&D. Surprisingly, this standard is more stringent for industries disposed to innovate rapidly. If a single standard is applied to heterogeneous industries, it will encourage ...
Working Paper
Patent licensing revisited: heterogeneous firms and product differentiation
In this paper we study the optimal licensing agreement between a patentholder of a cost-reducing innovation and firms that have heterogeneous uses for the new technology. We consider the case in which these firms are competitors in a downstream market. We extend the competition environment among the licensees beyond the Cournot/Bertrand models considered by the previous literature to a framework with differentiated products. We also assume that potential licensees have private information about the usefulness of the new technology. We characterize two purposes the optimal licensing contract ...
Journal Article
The uninvited guest: patents on Wall Street
For at least the past twenty-five years, financial services industries have been creating innovative products and services without the help of patents. The 1998 State Street Bank case changed all this, making patents freely available in these industries. Will patents help or hurt financial services innovation in the long run? This article sheds some light on this issue. ; Before the advent of patents, several ?appropriability? mechanisms protected financial services innovation: ?first mover? advantages, complementary or ?cospecific? assets, and trade secrecy. Evidence suggests that, in the ...
Journal Article
Innovative activity in rural areas: the importance of local and regional characteristics
Innovation, supported by a developed and active entrepreneurial system, long has been recognized as critical to regional economic competitiveness. Innovation also plays an essential role for rural economic development as these regions respond to the challenges of competing in the global economy. Barkley and Henry identify assets that contribute to nonmetro innovation ?hot spots.?
Conference Paper
The influence of university research on industrial innovation
Gerald Marschke examined university and industrial patents and found evidence of two trends that suggest a growing link between university research and industrial innovation. First, the flow of university researchers to private sector firms is growing. Second, industrial innovators are using more university-created knowledge in their products.
Journal Article
The international law of business method patents
Before the landmark State Street case in 1998, the courts and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) had often denied patents to inventions that were no more than methods of doing business. But State Street swept away three decades of complex, inconsistent case law, firmly establishing the patentability of business methods and computer software. ; This article reviews the current state of U.S. and international patent law with respect to business methods. After outlining the basic U.S. and international requirements for patentability, the author describes the evolution and current state ...