Languages, Fees and the International Scope of Patenting

Harhoff, Dietmar; Hoisl, Karin; van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, Bruno und Vandeput, Charlotte (3. Mai 2015): Languages, Fees and the International Scope of Patenting. SFB/TR 15 Discussion Paper No. 511

Abstract

This paper analyzes firms’ choices regarding the geographic scope of patent protection within the European patent system. We develop an econometric model at the patent level to quantify the impact of office fees and translation costs on firms’ decision to validate a patent in a particular country once it has been granted by the EPO. These costs have been disregarded in previous studies. The results suggest that both translation costs and fees for validation and renewals have a strong influence on the behavior of applicants.

• Dokumententyp: Paper
• Keywords: patents, patent fees, patent validation, renewal fees, translation costs
• Fakultät: Volkswirtschaft > Munich Discussion Papers in Economics ; Sonderforschungsbereiche > Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems
• Themengebiete: 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 330 Wirtschaft
• JEL Classification: O30, O31, O38, O57
• Sprache: Englisch

Literaturliste

R.K. Abrams (1980) ‘International Trade Flows under Flexible Exchange Rates, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’, Economic Review 65(3): 3-10. E. Archontopoulos, D. Guellec, N. Stevnsborg, B. van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie and N. van Zeebroeck (2007) ‘When Small is Beautiful: Measuring the Evolution and Consequences of the Voluminosity of Patent Applications at the EPO’, Information Economics and Policy 19(2): 103-132. A. Arundel, (2001) ‘The Relative Effectiveness of Patents and Secrecy for Appropriation’, Research Policy 30: 611-624. K. Blind, J. Edler, R. Frietsch and U. Schmoch (2006) ‘Motives to Patent: Empirical Evidence from Germany’, Research Policy 35: 655-672. D.L. Bosworth (1984) ‘Foreign Patent Flows to and from the United Kingdom’, Research Policy 13: 115-124. W. Cohen, R.R. Nelson and J. Walsh (2000) ‘Protecting Their Intellectual Assets: Appropriability Conditions And Why U.S. Manufacturing Firms Patent (Or Not)’, NBER Working Paper No. 7552, Cambridge, MA. COUNCIL REGULATION (EU) No 1260/2012 of 17 December 2012 implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection with regard to the applicable translation arrangements (OJ L 361 31.12.2012 p89) Y. Deng (2007) ‘Private Value of European Patents’, European Economic Review 51: 1785– 1812. G. de Rassenfosse and B. van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie (2007) ‘Per un Pugno di Dollari: A First Look at the Price Elasticity of Patents’, Oxford Review of Economic Policy 23(4): 1-17. G. de Rassenfosse and B. van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie (2012) ‘On the Price Elasticity of Demand for Patents’, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 75 (1), 58-77. G. de Rassenfosse and B. van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie (2013) ‚The Role of Fees in Patent Systems: Theory and Evidence’, Journal of Economic Surveys. 27 (4). 696–716, . I. Dyen, J.B. Kruskal and P. Black (1992) ‘An Indo-European Classification: A Lexicostatistical Experiment’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society New Series 82(5), Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society: iii-132. J. Eaton and S. Kortum (1996) ‘Trade in Ideas Patenting and Productivity in the OECD’, Journal of International Economics 40(3-4): 251-278. J. Eaton, S. Kortum and J. Lerner (2004) ‘International Patenting and the European Patent Office: A Quantitative Assessment, in Patents, Innovation and Economic Performance’, in: OECD Conference Proceedings, Paris and Washington, D.C.: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2004: 27-52. G. Friebel, A.K. Koch, D. Prady and P. Seabright (2006) Objectives and Incentives at the European Patent Office. Study Commissioned by the Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO). Available at http://idei.fr/doc/by/seabright/report_epo.pdf. T.L. Friedman (2006) The World is Flat – The Globalized World in the Twenty-First Century, Penguin Books. A. Gambardella, D. Harhoff, and B. Verspagen (2008) ‘The Value of European Patents’, European Management Review 5: 69-84. V.J. Geraci and W. Prewo (1977) ‘Bilateral Trade Flows and Transport Costs’, The Review of Economics and Statistics 64: 67-74. V. Ginsburgh, I. Ortuño-Ortín and S. Weber (2005) ‘Disenfranchisement in Linguistically Diverse Societies – The Case of the European Union’, Journal of the European Economic Association 3 (4): 946-996. V. Ginsburgh, W. Shlomo and S. Weyers (2011) ‘The economics of literary translation: Some theory and evidence’, Poetics 39.3 (2011): 228-246. D. Guellec and B. van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie (2001) ‘The Internationalisation of Technology Analyzed with Patent Data’, Research Policy 30(8): 1253-1266. D. Guellec and B. van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie (2007) The Economics of the European Patent System, Oxford: Oxford University Press. B.H. Hall and D. Harhoff (2011) ‘Recent Research on the Economics of Patents’, Annual Review of Economics 4: 541-565. D. Harhoff (2011) Deferred Patent Examination. München, Germany: Ludwig-Maximilians- Universität München, manuscript. D. Harhoff, K. Hoisl, B. Reichl and B. van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie (2009) ‘Patent validation at the country level - The role of fees and translation costs’. Research Policy 38 (9): 1423-1437. D. Harhoff and S. Wagner (2009) ‘Modelling the Duration of Patent Examination at the European Patent Office’, Management Science 55(12): 1969-1984. J. Lanjouw (1998) ‘Patent Value in the Shadow of Infringement: Simulation Estimations of Patent Value’, Review of Economic Studies 65: 671–710 OECD 1994. Using Patent Data as Science and Technological Indicators – Patent Manual 1994, Paris. A. Pakes (1986) ‘Patents as Options: Some Estimates of the Value of Holding European Patent Stocks’, Econometrica 54: 755-784. A. Pakes and M. Schankerman (1984) ‘The Rate of Obsolescence of Patents, Research Gestation Lags and the Private Rate of Return to Research Resources’, in: Griliches Z. (Ed.): R&D, patents and productivity, Chicago: University of Chicago. C. Peeters and B. van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie (2006) ‘Innovation Strategy and the Patenting Performances of Large Firms’, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 16(1- 2), 109-135. M.E. Porter and S. Stern (2000) ‘Measuring the "Ideas" Production Function: Evidence from International Patent Output’, NBER Working Paper No. 7891, Cambridge, MA. J. Putnam (1996) The Value of International Patent Rights. PhD Thesis, Yale University. J. Slama (1981) ‘Analysis by Means of a Gravitation Model of International Flows of Patent Applications in the Period 1967-1978’, World Patent Information 3(1): 2-8. M. Schankerman and A. Pakes (1986) ‘Estimates of the Value of Patent Rights in European Countries During the Post 1950 Period’, Economic Journal 96(384): 1052-1076. J. Tinbergen (1962) Shaping the World Economy: Suggestions for an International Economic Policy, New York: The Twentieth Century Fund. J.R. Thomas (2010) Deferred Examination of Patent Applications: Implications for Innovation Policy. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service Report 7-5700. B. van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie (2011) ‘Europe should stop taxing innovation’, World patent information, 33(1), 16-22. B. van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie (2015) ‘European Patent System’, Encyclopedia of Law and Economics. B. van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie and D. François (2009) ‘The Cost Factor in Patent Systems’, Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, 9 (4), 329-355. B. van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie and M. Mejer (2010) ‘The London Agreement and the cost of patenting in Europe’, European Journal of Law and Economics, 29 (2), 211-237. B. van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie and N. van Zeebroeck (2008) ‘A Brief History of Space and Time: The Scope-Year Index as a Patent Value Indicator Based on Families and Renewals’, Scientometrics, 75(2), 319–338. N. van Zeebroeck (2011) ‘The puzzle of patent value indicators’, Economics of Innovation and New Technology, 20 (1), 33-62. N. van Zeebroeck (2007) ‘Patents only live twice: a patent survival analysis in Europe’, Working Papers CEB 07-028. G. Von Graevenitz, S. Wagner and D. Harhoff (2013) ‘Incidence and Growth of Patent Thickets - The Impact of Technological Opportunities and Complexity’, Journal of Industrial Economics 61 (3): 521-563. J.M. Wooldridge, (2002) Introductory Econometrics – A Modern Approach, South Western / Thomson Learning.