Intellectual property rights, multinational firms and technology transfers

Intellectual Property Rights and Multinational Firms’ Modes of Entry

This paper studies the relationship between intellectual property rights (IPR) and the entry modes decision by multinational firms. A model is developed allowing firms to choose among export, foreign direct investment (FDI), and licensing. Firms in the recipient country may imitate the technology, and their abilities to do so depend both on the nature of each mode and on the level of IPR protec...

Intellectual Property Rights and International Technology Diffusion

The TRIPs agreement does not appear likely to alleviate any wealth differences arising from the existing North-South technology divide. Open-economy endogenous growth models suggest a dynamic shift towards further concentration of industrial R&D in the Northern countries. While production of goods developed as an outcome of this R&D may shift to Southern countries through the actions of multina...

Protecting Intellectual Property Rights: Are Small Firms Handicapped?

This paper studies the determinants of patent suits and settlements during 1978-1999 by linking information from the U.S. patent office, the federal courts and industry sources. We find that litigation risk is much higher for patents owned by individuals and firms with small patent portfolios. Patentees with a large portfolio of patents to trade, or other characteristics that facilitate “cooper...

Enforcing Intellectual Property Rights

We study the determinants of patent suits and their outcomes over the period 1978-1999 by linking detailed information from the U.S. patent office, the federal court system, and industry sources. The probability of being involved in a suit is very heterogeneous, being much higher for valuable patents and for patents owned by individuals and smaller firms. Thus the patent system generates incent...

Intellectual Property Rights