The dynamics of innovation are nonlinear and complex: geographical, technological, and economic selection environments can be expected to interact. Can patents provide an analytical lens to this process in terms of different attributes such as inventor addresses, classification codes, backward and forward citations, etc.? Two recently developed patent maps with interactive overlay techniques—Go...

Controversy often follows when patents are obtained in a pioneering area of technology. Patent filing activity in the field of regenerative medicine and in relation to stem cells in particular has not escaped opprobrium, although it is instructive to compare the nature of the debates that are taking place over the patenting of stem cells in the US and Europe. In the US, debate over the early pa...

Science linkage is a widely used patent bibliometric indicator to measure patent linkage to scientific research based on the frequency of citations to scientific papers within the patent. Science linkage is also regarded as noisy because the subject of patent citation behavior varies from inventors to examiners. In order to identify and ultimately reduce this noise, we analyzed the different ci...

This paper explores how examiner behavior is altered by the time allocated for reviewing a patent application. Insufficient examination time may crowd out examiner search effort, impeding the ability to form time-intensive prior-art-based rejections (especially, obviousness rejections) and thus leaving examiners more inclined to grant otherwise invalid applications. To test this prediction, we ...

When innovation is sequential, the development of new products depends on the access to previous discoveries. As a consequence the patent system affects both the revenues and the cost of the innovator. We construct a model of sequential innovation in which an innovator uses n patented inputs in R&D to invent a new product. We ask three questions: (i) what is the net effect of patents on innovat...

One of the fundamental goals of a patent system is to encourage the research and development of the most socially valuable inventions—those innovations that will produce the greatest benefits for society at large. If the government could determine in advance which inventions are most socially valuable, it could simply offer direct rewards for their development. The fact that the United States h...

Twelve countries have acceded to the European Union (EU) since 2004, including five transition economies in Central Europe, the three Baltic republics and two more in Eastern Europe (along with Cyprus and Malta). One of the transition economies, Slovenia, in 2007 joined the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), adopting the euro, as envisioned in the Maastricht Treaty, in 2007. Should the...

The European Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals was opened for signature in Strasbourg on 13 November 1987 and entered into force on 1 May 1992. This Convention states that: 'Surgical operations for the purpose of modifying the appearance of a pet animal or for other non-curative purposes shall be prohibited and, in particular: the docking of tails'. At present, 15 of the 27 States in...

Inherent within emerging new food supply chains (FSCs) in the UK in recent years, and in particular those based upon direct marketing, is the (re)connection of production–consumption processes and concomitantly producers and consumers. New forms of connection are apparent, as food produce is differentiated on the basis of quality constructs which are often linked both to the place and nature of...