Patents: Economics, Policy and Measurement

Product DescriptionPatents summarizes four decades of pioneering research by F.M. Scherer on the economics of patent protection. This book is distinguished by concern for the role of patents in a global context and by thorough investigation into the utility of patent counts as instruments for measuring the magnitude and consequences of technological invention. The book also includes a detailed new introduction by F.M. Scherer.The seminal essays contained within the book are organized around three principal foci: how to identify and shape policies yielding optimal patent protection in domestic and international markets; using patent data to reveal important features of the economy; and interpreting the economic significance of patents as measures of innovation. Explored under the second focus are the relationships of patenting to firm size, market structure, demand, and how inventions flow through the economy to yield productivity gains. The third focus illuminates implications of the highly skewed distribution of individual patent values.Scholars working on innovation and science, technological change, and law and economics will find this an invaluable and interesting book. It will also appeal to practitioners involved in patent and antitrust matters.Review'The volume gives the reader the benefits of diagrams, figures and charts to illustrate the text, and it is richly footnoted, very thoroughly indexed, and fine textured throughout. Every paragraph contains specific references, examples, and notes. . . this book is a collection of major contributions to the important array of issues in the economics of patent system. It represents the collection of works on analyzing and modelling methodologies based on the patent data. This volume is a major contribution not only to the history of research in the patent system, but also to the understanding of a good deal of why the concept of patenting has evolved in economics in the global context as it has. . . I would say this is a book for academics, practitioners who have a background in statistical analysis and econometric modelling, and advanced students interested in the concept of patenting and the analysis of patent data.' -- Guldem Gokcek, Prometheus'Taken together, these papers make accessible a wide range of patent-related economic and policy issues. . . the papers in the present book give a very good exposure to significant issues involving innovation. Both specialists in innovation and general industrial organization economists will find much interesting material in this collection.'About the AuthorF.M. Scherer, Professor of Public Policy and Corporate Management in the Aetna Chair, Emeritus, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, US