IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/zewdip/13048.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A look at both sides of the coin: Investigating the protective and the disclosure effect of patenting

Author

Listed:
  • Heger, Diana
  • Zaby, Alexandra K.

Abstract

This paper presents a theoretical and empirical investigation of the two basic effects of patenting: the positive effect of temporarily mitigating competition, and the negative effect of mandatory disclosure of a patent application. Providing empirical evidence for the presented theoretical results we find that (i) a technological lead and the propensity to patent are negatively related as opposed to common intuition, (ii) in industries with imperfect appropriability in case of secrecy the extent of the technological lead is positively associated with the propensity to patent, and that (iii) the intensity of patent protection mitigates the competitive threat a patentee faces.

Suggested Citation

  • Heger, Diana & Zaby, Alexandra K., 2013. "A look at both sides of the coin: Investigating the protective and the disclosure effect of patenting," ZEW Discussion Papers 13-048, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:13048
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/78620/1/756758815.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alexandra Zaby, 2010. "Losing the lead: the patenting decision in the light of the disclosure requirement," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 147-164.
    2. Heidrun C. Hoppe & Ulrich Lehmann‐Grube, 2001. "Second‐Mover Advantages in Dynamic Quality Competition," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(3), pages 419-433, September.
    3. Bronwyn H. Hall & Adam Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 2005. "Market Value and Patent Citations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(1), pages 16-38, Spring.
    4. van Dijk, Theon, 1996. "Patent Height and Competition in Product Improvements," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 151-167, June.
    5. Austin, David H, 1993. "An Event-Study Approach to Measuring Innovative Output: The Case of Biotechnology," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 253-258, May.
    6. Katrin Hussinger, 2006. "Is Silence Golden? Patents Versus Secrecy At The Firm Level," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(8), pages 735-752.
    7. Diana Heger & Alexandra K. Zaby, 2013. "The heterogeneous costs of disclosure and the propensity to patent," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 65(3), pages 630-652, July.
    8. Ai, Chunrong & Norton, Edward C., 2003. "Interaction terms in logit and probit models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 123-129, July.
    9. Harhoff, Dietmar & Scherer, Frederic M. & Vopel, Katrin, 2003. "Citations, family size, opposition and the value of patent rights," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 1343-1363, September.
    10. Alexandra Zaby, 2010. "The Decision to Patent," Contributions to Economics, Springer, number 978-3-7908-2612-8.
    11. Arundel, Anthony & Kabla, Isabelle, 1998. "What percentage of innovations are patented? empirical estimates for European firms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 127-141, June.
    12. Glenn Hoetker, 2007. "The use of logit and probit models in strategic management research: Critical issues," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 331-343, April.
    13. Denicolo, Vincenzo & Zanchettin, Piercarlo, 2002. "How should forward patent protection be provided?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 801-827, June.
    14. Arundel, Anthony, 2001. "The relative effectiveness of patents and secrecy for appropriation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 611-624, April.
    15. Wesley M. Cohen & Richard R. Nelson & John P. Walsh, 2000. "Protecting Their Intellectual Assets: Appropriability Conditions and Why U.S. Manufacturing Firms Patent (or Not)," NBER Working Papers 7552, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. James J. Anton & Dennis A. Yao, 2004. "Little Patents and Big Secrets: Managing Intellectual Property," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 35(1), pages 1-22, Spring.
    17. Joshua Lerner, 1994. "The Importance of Patent Scope: An Empirical Analysis," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(2), pages 319-333, Summer.
    18. Bronwyn H. Hall & Dietmar Harhoff, 2012. "Recent Research on the Economics of Patents," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 541-565, July.
    19. Horstmann, Ignatius & MacDonald, Glenn M & Slivinski, Alan, 1985. "Patents as Information Transfer Mechanisms: To Patent or (Maybe) Not to Patent," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(5), pages 837-858, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bronwyn Hall & Christian Helmers & Mark Rogers & Vania Sena, 2014. "The Choice between Formal and Informal Intellectual Property: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(2), pages 375-423, June.
    2. Crass, Dirk & Garcia Valero, Francisco & Pitton, Francesco & Rammer, Christian, 2016. "Protecting innovation through patents and trade secrets: Determinants and performance impacts for firms with a single innovation," ZEW Discussion Papers 16-061, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    3. Crass, Dirk & Valero, Francisco Garcia & Pitton, Francesco & Rammer, Christian, 2019. "Protecting Innovation Through Patents and Trade Secrets: Evidence for Firms with a Single Innovation," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 26(1), pages 117-156.
    4. Dyer, Travis A. & Glaeser, Stephen & Lang, Mark H. & Sprecher, Caroline, 2024. "The effect of patent disclosure quality on innovation," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2).
    5. Hussingera, Katrin & Issahd, Wunnam, 2022. "Trade secret protection and R&D investment of family firms," ZEW Discussion Papers 22-039, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    6. Katrin Hussinger & Wunnam Basit Issah, 2022. "Trade Secret Protection and R&D Investment of Family Firms," DEM Discussion Paper Series 22-11, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    7. Jos Jansen, 2011. "On Competition and the Strategic Management of Intellectual Property in Oligopoly," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(4), pages 1043-1072, December.
    8. Thomä Jörg & Zimmermann Volker, 2013. "Knowledge Protection Practices in Innovating SMEs," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 233(5-6), pages 691-717, October.
    9. Gallié, Emilie-Pauline & Legros, Diégo, 2012. "French firms’ strategies for protecting their intellectual property," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 780-794.
    10. Bos, Brenda & Broekhuizen, Thijs L.J. & de Faria, Pedro, 2015. "A dynamic view on secrecy management," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(12), pages 2619-2627.
    11. Shailu Singh, 2018. "Patenting Matters, Not Patents: Firm Market Value in Indian Manufacturing," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 12(1), pages 67-87, February.
    12. Stephen Glaeser & Jeremy Michels & Robert E. Verrecchia, 2020. "Discretionary disclosure and manager horizon: evidence from patenting," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 597-635, June.
    13. Martin Kalthaus, 2020. "Knowledge recombination along the technology life cycle," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 643-704, July.
    14. Serge Pajak, 2016. "Do innovative firms rely on big secrets? An analysis of IP protection strategies with the CIS 4 survey," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(5), pages 516-532, July.
    15. Malte Mosel, 2012. "The role of patents and secrecy for intellectual property protection: theory and evidence," Working Papers 117, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    16. Telg, Nina & Lokshin, Boris & Letterie, Wilko, 2023. "How formal and informal intellectual property protection matters for firms' decision to engage in coopetition: The role of environmental dynamism and competition intensity," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    17. Nicolas van Zeebroeck & Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, 2011. "Filing strategies and patent value," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(6), pages 539-561, February.
    18. Blind, Knut & Cremers, Katrin & Mueller, Elisabeth, 2009. "The influence of strategic patenting on companies' patent portfolios," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 428-436, March.
    19. Sara Amoroso & Albert N. Link, 2021. "Intellectual property protection mechanisms and the characteristics of founding teams," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(9), pages 7329-7350, September.
    20. Manuel Acosta & Daniel Coronado & Esther Ferrándiz & Manuel Jiménez, 2022. "Effects of knowledge spillovers between competitors on patent quality: what patent citations reveal about a global duopoly," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 47(5), pages 1451-1487, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    patenting decision; disclosure requirement; patent scope; vertical product differentiation; IPC codes;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • O14 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:13048. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zemande.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.