Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

Since its creation more than 200 years ago, the patent system has played an important role in stimulating technological innovation by providing legal protection to inventions of every description and by disseminating useful technical information about them (Machlup & Penrose 1950, Scotchmer 2005). Driven by the growing importance of technology to a nation’s well-being over the last century, the role of patents in the economy becomes increasingly important. Ever-growing numbers of patent applications are a clear indication that firms of all sizes as well as universities and public institutions are ascribing greater value to patents and are willing to bear higher costs to acquire, exercise and defend them in court (National Research Council 2004).

In this paper, we apply a semiparametric approach described in Fahrmeir & Lang (2001) and Brezger & Lang (2005) to analyze the determinants and the effects of patent oppositions in Europe. This approach replaces linear effects of metrical covariates by smooth regression functions (). Within a Bayesian framework we apply MCMC-methods for estimation purposes. In order to analyze the benefits from applying semi-parametric models we compare our specification to the results of a simple linear probit model employed by Graham et al. (2002) using their dataset on EPO patents from the biotechnology/pharmaceutical and semiconductor/computer software sector.

The last two decades have seen an unprecedented increase in patent applications at the USPTO (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office) and the EPO (European Patent Office). As the trends in Figure 3.1 demonstrate, the growth in appUcations started earher in the U.S. than in Europe, and patent grants have followed applications more closely at the USPTO than in Europe. Using data on U.S. patent applications and grants Popp et al. (2003) determine factors influencing the length of the patent examination process. In this paper, I focus on the determinants of the duration of the patent examination process at the EPO with the objective to provide a first analysis of potential drivers of the duration of patent office decision-making distinguishing 30 technical fields.

There has been a wide-spread misconception based on the wording of the European Patent Convention (EPC), which is not easily understood by non-experts, that the protection of business methods by patents is prohibited in Europe. As a consequence, a significant body of the legal, academic and business community believes that there is no patent protection available for business method inventions within the European patent system. However, a closer look reveals that business methods are eligible for patentability in Europe and are actually being granted by the European Patent Office despite the apparent exclusion in Article 52 EPC.

Recent research argues that the management of intangible assets is a key to firms’ long-term success and requires specialized management techniques and a distinctive set of skills (Rivette & Kline 2000, Standfield 2002, Granstrand 1999). It is further argued that the active management of firms’ intellectual capital is as a prerequisite for securing (future) profits making IP-departments an indispensable part of firms’ strategic planning efforts (Lev 2004, Reitzig 2004). Despite this widespread acknowledgement of the importance of intellectual property management as corporate function little attention has been paid to the actual organization of IP related services within firms. Among the few publications containing brief studies of the organization of IP-departments are Taylor & Silbertson (1973), Granstrand (1999) and Pitkethly (2001).