Based on a survey of the inventors of 9,017 European patented inventions, this paper provides new information about the characteristics of European inventors, the sources of their knowledge, the importance of formal and informal collaborations, the motivations to invent, and the actual use and...

Many scholars have wrestled with what I call the “first-order question” in patent law: What policies should we adopt to promote innovation? This article grapples with the second-order question: What policies should we adopt to promote innovation about promoting innovation? I argue that...

Germany is one of few countries in which the monetary compensation for inventors is not only determined by negotiations between employer and employee-inventor, but also by relatively precise legal provisions. In this paper, we describe the characteristics of the German Employees' Inventions Act...

Globalization, high growth rates in high-tech industries, growing emerging markets and harmonization of patent institutions across countries have stimulated patenting in foreign markets. We use a simple model of international patenting, where the decision to patent in a foreign country depends...

The concept of the middle income trap takes place among the frequently discussed issues in the growth literature in the last periods. There are a number of countries in the world, which cannot move to the high income economic level and which squeeze to the middle income trap. These countries...

Biographical information on a sample of renowned U.S. inventors is combined with information on the patents they received over their careers, and employed to highlight the implications of patent institutions for markets in inventions and for democratization. The United States deliberately...

India's emergence in the world economy over the last decade, has often, in popular discourse, been attributed, at least to a large extent, to its sustained efforts towards technological learning and capacity building. In this paper we present an overview of India's technological trajectory with...

Has upgrading and enforcing its patent laws slowed China’s economic growth? The answer we draw from detailed analysis of provincial aggregate data covering roughly the period 1990 through 2007 is strongly negative, but understanding the channels through which stricter protection of...

The introduction of pharmaceutical product patents in India and other developing countries is expected to have a significant effect on public health and local pharmaceutical industries. This paper draws implications from the historical experience of Japan when it introduced product patents in...