Do Innovative Firms Rely on Big Secrets? An Analysis of IP Protection Strategies with the CIS 4 Survey

Pajak, Serge

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1538980

Cited by 10 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 27 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…That is, competition in prices gives an incentive to patent different technologies than competition in quantities. Pajak (2010) finds that small firms in the French intermediate goods industry are more likely to patent small innovations than big innovations, which is consistent with these incentives. As far as I know, my paper is the first to analyze the trade-off between signaling and expropriation in a model of Bertrand competition, and to compare the two modes of competition.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 59%

“…Conversely, for patents with a low risk of expropriation, the signaling effect tends to dominate, and all innovations are patented (Okuno-Fujiwara et al, 1990). Empirical findings by Mäkinen (2007), Moser (2010), and Pajak (2010) are consistent with the strategy of patenting big innovations to a greater extent than small innovations. 6, 7 Interestingly, Anton and Yao (2003) obtain the opposite prediction in a related model with divisible innovations, that is, small innovations are patented to a greater extent than big innovations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…Further, if patenting gives a high risk of expropriation, the expropriation effect substitutability between patenting and secrecy for product innovations, and only weak complementarity for process innovations. In data from the 2004 CIS, Pajak (2010) finds only a small positive pairwise correlation between patenting and secrecy for product innovations of small, innovative firms in France. By contrast, Hussinger (2006) finds a strong correlation between the patent propensity and the use of secrecy in data from the 2000 CIS among German firms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Whether the intellectual property strategies are substitutes or complements in practice remains an open issue. At first sight, data from the Yale Survey and Carnegie Mellon Survey (CMS) in the United States, and the European Community Innovation Survey (CIS) seem to support at most weak complementarity between the appropriation strategies (Levin et al, 1987;Arundel and Kabla, 1998;Cohen et al, 2000;Hussinger, 2006;Pajak, 2010). 3 However, there are at least two reasons why these 1.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…4. Pajak (2010) mitigates this problem by focusing on small firms with one innovation on average. 5.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

On Competition and the Strategic Management of Intellectual Property in Oligopoly

Jansen

2009

SSRN Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

An innovative firm chooses strategically whether to patent its process innovation or rely on secrecy. By doing so, the firm manages its rival's beliefs about the size of the innovation, and affects the incentives in the product market. Different measures of competitive pressure in the product market have different effects on the equilibrium patenting choices of an innovative firm with unknown costs and probabilistic patent validity. Increasing the number of firms (degree of product substitutability) gives a smaller (greater) patenting incentive. Switching from Bertrand to Cournot competition gives a smaller (greater) patenting incentive if patent protection is weak (strong).

show abstract

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 59%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…4. Pajak (2010) mitigates this problem by focusing on small firms with one innovation on average. 5.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

On Competition and the Strategic Management of Intellectual Property in Oligopoly

Jansen

2009

SSRN Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Small firms and patenting revisited

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In order to observe a patent application at the firm level, two conditions need to be met: new products need to be of patentable quality, which depends both on the degree of novelty of innovations and on the total number (portfolio) of innovations; and the benefits of patents need to be higher than the costs of owning them. Analyzing the patent propensity of small and large UK firms using a novel innovation-level survey (the SIPU survey) linked to Community Innovation Survey data, we find that when we consider the whole innovation portfolio, smaller firms do patent less than larger firms. However, using data on individual innovations, we find that smaller firms are no less likely to patent any specific innovation than larger firms. We argue that size differences in the probability to patent relate primarily to the "portfolio effect," i.e., larger firms generate more innovations than smaller firms, and therefore are more likely to create one or more which are patentable. As for the decision to patent a patentable innovation, we find that cost barriers, more than issues of innovation quality or enforceability, deter small firms from patenting specific innovations. Measures to address the costs of patenting for smaller-perhaps by considering patents as eligible costs for R&D tax credits-and/or subsidizing SMEs' participation in IP litigation schemes may both encourage patent use by smaller firms.

show abstract