Working Paper: NBER ID: w17304
Authors: Carlos J. Serrano
Abstract: The "market for innovation" -- the sale and licensing of patents -- is an often discussed source of incentives to invest in R&D. This article presents and estimates a model of the transfer and renewal of patents that, under some assumptions, allows us to quantify the gains resulting from the transfer of patents in the market for innovation. The gains from trade measure the benefits of reallocating the ownership of a patent from the original inventor to a new owner for whom the patent has a higher value. In addition, we study the effect that lowering the costs of technology transfer has on the proportion of patents traded and the gains from trade.
Keywords: patents; innovation; technology transfer; gains from trade
JEL Codes: L24; O32; O34
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| lowering technology transfer costs (F16) | increases the proportion of patents traded (O39) |
| lowering technology transfer costs (F16) | increases the gains from trade (F11) |
| gains from trade measure the benefits of reallocating patent ownership (F12) | reallocating patent ownership from the original inventor to a new owner who values the patent higher (O31) |
| average value of traded patents > average value of non-traded patents (D46) | selection effects in patent trading (D45) |