Strategic Spillovers and Incentives for Research and Development

Harhoff, Dietmar

doi:10.1287/mnsc.42.6.907

“…The measure "claims," probably one of the most important items in any patent, was underutilized in patent-related studies: [16], [29]. Typical studies on patent data have used patent citations disproportionately: [10], [14], [15], [20]- [22]. This study sheds new light on the use of claims in patent-related research.…”

Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Patented Knowledge And Its Commercialization

Jeong¹

2013

International Journal of Contents

1

0

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“…Companies can, for instance, disclose technical advances to allow upstream suppliers improving their products (Harhoff et al, 2003b). Disclosure of technologies can increase the size of downstream markets (Harhoff, 1996) or trigger feedback from users in downstream markets (Penin, 2007). Knowledge can also be disclosed with the intention to implement a technology as a standard (Spencer, 2003) or to achieve compatibility with interdependent products (Cusumano and Gawer, 2002).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In most of the cases one to two documents are sufficient to determine the scope of the patent application in question (Michel and Bettels, 2001). This parsimonious and objective approach ensures that the references are a relevant subsample of the actual state of the art rather than an overview on the subject-matter of the invention (Harhoff andReitzig, 2004, Harhoff et al, 2005). The evaluation of the third criterion of industrial applicability usually does not imply further assessment based on prior art (Michel and Bettels, 2001).…”

Section: Searches For Prior Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

Corporate Science in the Patent System: An Analysis of the Semiconductor Technology

Malva

¹

,

Hussinger

²

2010

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Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW.Download this ZEW Discussion Paper from our ftp server:ftp://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp10098.pdf Non-technical SummaryCorporate scientific publications are often presented as a strategic means for firms to create prior art with the objective to prevent rivals from patenting related inventions. This defensive disclosure strategy has attracted the attention of academic scholars in the field of law, economics and management science. The academic literature has developed different answers to the question why firms engage in defensive publishing at the costs of forgoing the right to exclude third parties from using the invention by applying for a patent. One stream of the literature, mainly put forward by economic scholars, analyzes defensive publishing in the context of patent race models. In these models, the laggard in the race has incentives to publish preliminary results that are not patentable in order to prolong the patent race. Scholars in law and management science consider open disclosure as a complementary strategy to patenting. The latter perspective finds partial confirmation in interviews with patent experts in the corporate sector, while the patent race model is largely rejected by practitioners. Both streams of the literature assume that corporate publications enter the pool of prior art which is relevant to judge the novelty of patent applications at the patent office and that they have the power to block or hinder patent applications. This proposed mechanism behind corporate publications as a means to preempt patents on related technologies so far lacked empirical evidence.This paper provides a first (large-scale) analysis of the effectiveness of corporate scientific publications regarding their power to block rivals' patents. With focus on the semiconductor technology we show that scientific publications by corporations challenge the novelty and the inventive step of patent applications at the European Patent Office (EPO) significantly more than other pieces of prior art. Hence, we show that the mechanism behind the concept of defensive publishing works. Further, detailed information from the EPO patent examination procedure allows us to show that corporate publications threaten the novelty of patent applications in combination with other pieces of prior art, like patents, rather than as standalone documents. This supports the view of practitioners and scholars in law and management science who argue that corporate scientific publishing can be an...

show abstract

“…In most of the cases one to two documents are sufficient to determine the scope of the patent application in question (Michel and Bettels, 2001). This parsimonious and objective approach ensures that the references are a relevant subsample of the actual state of the art rather than an overview on the subject-matter of the invention (Harhoff andReitzig, 2004, Harhoff et al, 2005). The evaluation of the third criterion of industrial applicability usually does not imply further assessment based on prior art (Michel and Bettels, 2001 The minimalistic approach to prior art searches and the categorization of the references according to the patentability criteria enable us to assess the impact of scientific contributions in the process of patent granting.…”

Section: Searches For Prior Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

Corporate science in the patent system: An analysis of the semiconductor technology

Malva

¹

,

Hussinger

²

2012

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

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Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW.Download this ZEW Discussion Paper from our ftp server:ftp://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp10098.pdf Non-technical SummaryCorporate scientific publications are often presented as a strategic means for firms to create prior art with the objective to prevent rivals from patenting related inventions. This defensive disclosure strategy has attracted the attention of academic scholars in the field of law, economics and management science. The academic literature has developed different answers to the question why firms engage in defensive publishing at the costs of forgoing the right to exclude third parties from using the invention by applying for a patent. One stream of the literature, mainly put forward by economic scholars, analyzes defensive publishing in the context of patent race models. In these models, the laggard in the race has incentives to publish preliminary results that are not patentable in order to prolong the patent race. Scholars in law and management science consider open disclosure as a complementary strategy to patenting. The latter perspective finds partial confirmation in interviews with patent experts in the corporate sector, while the patent race model is largely rejected by practitioners. Both streams of the literature assume that corporate publications enter the pool of prior art which is relevant to judge the novelty of patent applications at the patent office and that they have the power to block or hinder patent applications. This proposed mechanism behind corporate publications as a means to preempt patents on related technologies so far lacked empirical evidence.This paper provides a first (large-scale) analysis of the effectiveness of corporate scientific publications regarding their power to block rivals' patents. With focus on the semiconductor technology we show that scientific publications by corporations challenge the novelty and the inventive step of patent applications at the European Patent Office (EPO) significantly more than other pieces of prior art. Hence, we show that the mechanism behind the concept of defensive publishing works. Further, detailed information from the EPO patent examination procedure allows us to show that corporate publications threaten the novelty of patent applications in combination with other pieces of prior art, like patents, rather than as standalone documents. This supports the view of practitioners and scholars in law and management science who argue that corporate scientific publishing can be an...

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Strategic Spillovers and Incentives for Research and Development

Cited by 120 publications

References 24 publications

Patented Knowledge And Its Commercialization

Patented Knowledge And Its Commercialization

Corporate Science in the Patent System: An Analysis of the Semiconductor Technology

Corporate science in the patent system: An analysis of the semiconductor technology

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