This paper explores the various policies implemented in Italy to foster innovative activities and to regulate the technological effects on market competition and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). Research promotion has primarily taken the form of facilitated credits and grants to stimulate R&D...

This paper develops a methodology to compare the quality of examination services in different patent offices. Quality is defined as the extent to which patent offices comply with their patentability conditions in a transparent way. The methodology consists of a two-layer analytical framework...

This article contributes to the literature on innovation and development by identifying the determinants of innovation, and the role of intellectual property rights, in industrialized and developing countries. Controlling for sample selection, I find that, in general, the level of intellectual...

Even though most countries have agreed to a harmonization of intellectual property rights by signing the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), there is still much dispute about the optimal level of protection of intellectual property rights in the world....

This paper investigates the extent to which international trade hinges onpatents. We analyze the export and patenting activities of the universe of French exporting firms over the period 2002-2011. The noticeable feature of our study is that we observe export and patenting activities worldwide...

The ambiguity of the empirical results on the relationship between copyright and creativity calls for a better theoretical understanding of the issue, possibly enlarging the analysis to other factors such as technology and copyright enforcement. This paper addresses these complex policy issues...

The role of the patent system in the pharmaceutical sector is highly debated also due to its strong public health implications. In this paper we develop an evolutionary, agent-based model of the pharmaceutical industry to explore the impact of different configurations of the patent system upon...