An experiment on protecting intellectual property

Buchanan, Joy; Wilson, Bart J.

doi:10.1007/s10683-013-9390-8

Cited by 23 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…They find that a combination of tolerance for early failure and rewards for long-term success are most effective in fostering innovation. Buchanan and Wilson (2014) implement a search task that consists of creating colors with the aim of finding the 'color of the day', randomly set by the experimenter, and introduce trade. In their IP treatment the creation of non-rivalrous knowledge goods is highest; however, prices increase as substantial monopoly profits are acquired by the innovators.…”

Section: Related Experimental Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…A perfect laboratory task should include the use of both financial and creative resources, and should recreate both the incentive structure and the uncertainty of actual innovation settings. Some of the existing experiments forfeit creativity, opting for a search task (see, for instance, Cantner et al 2009;Meloso, Copic, and Bossaerts 2009;Ederer and Manso 2013;Buchanan and Wilson 2014). Others forfeit the dynamic nature of the task and 4 control over the results of the creation process to focus on creativity only (see, for instance, Buccafusco and Sprigman 2010, who let the subjects write poems).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Intellectual Property Rights Hinder Sequential Innovation -- Experimental Evidence

et al. 2015

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract: In this paper we contribute to the discussion on whether intellectual property rights foster or hinder innovation by means of a laboratory experiment. We introduce a novel Scrabble-like creativity task that captures most essentialities of a sequential innovation process. We use this task to investigate the effects of intellectual property allowing subjects to assign license fees to their innovations. We find intellectual property to have an adversely effect on welfare as innovations become less frequent and less sophisticated. Communication among innovators is not able to prevent this detrimental effect. Introducing intellectual property results in more basic innovations and subjects fail to exploit the most valuable sequential innovation paths. Subjects act more self-reliant and non-optimally in order to avoid paying license fees. Our results suggest that granting intellectual property rights hinders innovations, especially for sectors characterized by a strong sequentiality in innovation processes. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may Keywords IntroductionThe question whether society should grant intellectual property (IP) rights to innovators has been discussed widely in economics, law and politics. In this paper we contribute to the debate by means of a controlled real-effort laboratory experiment involving creativity. We introduce a novel design that allows us to create counterfactual situations and test directly the effects of IP rights on the innovation rate and welfare of a laboratory economy.The issues of what are the optimal extent and nature of IP rights have been long debated, but neither theoretical nor empirical research has provided a final answer. Theoretical results cut both ways. Conventional wisdom is largely derived from static models, and does not robustly survive in dynamic, sequential innovation models that best describe sectors characterized by cumulative research (Scotchmer 1991). The question of IP in dynamic, sequential models has been raised by several theoretical studies. They tend to offer a less positive view of the effect of IP on the rate of innovations and thus aggregate welfare. Green and Scotchmer (1995) study the division of profits between sequential innovators and suggest that it is desirable to minimize patent life. Moschini and Yerokhin (2008) In this paper we exploit the unique characteristic of laboratory experiments of allowing to easily build counterfactual situations while retaining control...

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Section: Related Experimental Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intellectual Property Rights Hinder Sequential Innovation -- Experimental Evidence

et al. 2015

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“…Buchanan and Wilson (2014) design an experimental environment with subjects producing, trading, and consuming rivalrous and nonrivalrous goods. Rivalrous goods are produced out of two complements and can be sold.…”

Section: Intellectual Property Rightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratory experiments in innovation research: a methodological overview and a review of the current literature

Brüggemann

Bizer

2016

J Innov Entrep

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Innovation research has developed a broad set of methodological approaches in recent decades. In this paper, we propose laboratory experiments as a fruitful methodological addition to the existing methods in innovation research. Therefore, we provide an overview of the existing methods, discuss the advantages and limitations of laboratory experiments, and review experimental studies dealing with different fields of innovation policy, namely intellectual property rights, financial instruments, payment schemes, and R&D competition. These studies show that laboratory experiments can fruitfully complement the established methods in innovation research and provide novel empirical evidence by creating and analyzing counterfactual situations.

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“…De l'autre côté, la littérature expérimentale relative à la propriété intellectuelle compte quelques travaux très récents qui soit examinent la validité de l'argument de l'incitation (Meloso 2009, Buchanan et Wilson 2014, Bruggemann et al 2015, Engel et Kleine 2015, soit s'intéressent à la perception que les individus ont de la propriété intellectuelle, en recourant notamment à des questionnaires (Mandel 2015, Mandel et al 2015, Fast et al 2016. Nous nous inspirons de cette seconde catégorie de travaux pour notre protocole.…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

« Dis-moi ce que tu penses de la propriété intellectuelle, je te dirai qui tu es »

Guichardaz¹,

Coudert²,

Igersheim³

et al. 2019

Revue Économique

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L'objet de cet article est d'analyser de manière expérimentale les liens supposés entre les préférences sociales des individus et la manière dont ils conçoivent la propriété intellectuelle, en opposant en particulier les approches utilitaristes et déontologiques. Pour ce faire, nous avons mis en place un protocole expérimental original à l'interface de deux courants de littérature : l'un, bien établi, traitant des préférences sociales ; l'autre, naissant, tentant de capter les différentes justifications de l'existence de la propriété intellectuelle. Notre expérience aboutit à deux enseignements majeurs : 1) les sujets utilitaristes semblent changer de conception de la justice sociale dès lors que la question de la propriété intellectuelle est posée; 2) les sujets rawlsiens sont en parfaite cohérence avec l'approche déontologique de la propriété intellectuelle, donnant la priorité aux droits des auteurs et des inventeurs, tout en minimisant les inégalités pouvant en résulter en optant, par exemple, en faveur d'une durée courte de propriété intellectuelle. JEL Codes : C 91 ; D 63 ; O34 Mots-clefs. Préférences sociales, économie expérimentale, Rawls, propriété intellectuelle * Les auteurs tiennent à remercier les éditeurs de la Revue Economique ainsi que les deux rapporteurs pour leurs commentaires et remarques constructives.

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An experiment on protecting intellectual property

Cited by 23 publications

References 18 publications

Intellectual Property Rights Hinder Sequential Innovation -- Experimental Evidence

Intellectual Property Rights Hinder Sequential Innovation -- Experimental Evidence

Laboratory experiments in innovation research: a methodological overview and a review of the current literature

« Dis-moi ce que tu penses de la propriété intellectuelle, je te dirai qui tu es »

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