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The Use of Intellectual Property in Brazil
Economic Research Working Paper No. 23
This study describes patterns and trends of intellectual property use in Brazil, drawing on a new statistical database (BADEPI).
Publication year: 2014
Trademarks Squatters: Evidence from Chile
Economic Research Working Paper No. 22
This paper explores the phenomenon of “trademark squatting” – a situation in which someone other than the original brand owner obtains a trademark on a brand. The authors develop a model that shows how squatting results from market uncertainty that leads brand owners to rationally forgo registering trademarks, creating opportunities for squatting. They create an algorithm to identify squatters in the Chilean trademark register and show empirically that squatting is a persistent and systematic phenomenon. Using data on trademark oppositions, the authors find that squatting leads brand owners that have been exposed to squatting to “over-protect” their brands by registering disproportionately many trademarks and covering classes other than those directly related to their products and services. Trademark squatting, therefore, creates a strategic, albeit excessive, response by brand owners which inflates trademark filings.
Defining and Measuring the “Market for Brands”: Are Emerging Economies Catching Up?
Economic Research Working Paper No. 21
Markets for brands, as defined in this paper, play an important but underappreciated economic role in today's global economy. The ability to use Market for Brands allows companies to diversify their business; access competences; and generate new revenues without substantial investments. This paper defines and provides a taxonomy for different brand markets then analyzes the economic rationale of such markets. It also assesses the relative importance of the different brand-related transaction types in developed and emerging economies alike.
International Patenting Strategies of Chinese Residents: An Analysis of Foreign-Oriented Patent Families
Economic Research Working Paper No. 20
This paper analyzes Chinese patenting abroad by using WIPO's foreign-oriented patent family dataset and a respective enterprise questionnaire. It finds that by the turn of the century China emerged as major actor in terms of international patenting. While this is changing rapidly, the share of Chinese patents which get filed abroad is still a fraction of total patents filed at home and most patents still also only target one foreign IP office. Chinese foreign-oriented patent families are concentrated in a few technology fields, and a few Chinese firms are responsible for a large share of total Chinese patents filed abroad.
The Emergence of An Educational Tool Industry: Opportunities and Challenges for Innovation in Education
Economic Research Working Paper No. 19
This paper describes the emergence of a population of firms specialized in developing and commercializing educational tools and instructional technologies, and discusses whether this trend can be seen as part of the solution to the innovation deficit and cost disease problems in this sector.
The Egyptian Information Technology Sector and the Role of Intellectual Property: Economic Assessment and Recommendations
Economic Research Working Paper No. 18
This paper discusses the state of innovation in the Egyptian information technology sector (IT) and seeks to identify the current and potential role of intellectual property (IP) for this sector as well as the links between IP and innovation and foreign direct investment. The paper proposes IP-related policies which could contribute to promoting domestic innovation.
Inventor Data for Research on Migration and Innovation: A Survey and a Pilot
Economic Research Working Paper No. 17
This paper discusses the existing literature on migration and innovation, with special emphasis on empirical studies based on patent and inventor data. Other sources of micro-data are examined, too, for comparative purposes. A pilot database, based on patent filings at the European Patent Office is presented. It contains information on individual inventors, including their country of residence and of origin. Preliminary evidence suggests that immigrant inventors contribute to innovation not only in the United States, but also in selected European countries, where they often rank among the most productive individuals.
U.S. High-Skilled Immigration, Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Empirical Approaches and Evidence
Economic Research Working Paper No. 16
High-skilled immigrants are a very important component of U.S. innovation and entrepreneurship. Studies regarding the impact of immigrants on natives tend to find limited consequences in the short-run, while the results in the long-run are more varied and much less certain. Immigrants in the United States aid business and technology exchanges with their home countries, but the overall effect that the migration has on the home country remains unclear. Little is known about return migration of workers engaged in innovation and entrepreneurship, except that it is rapidly growing in importance.
Diaspora Networks, Knowledge Flows and Brain Drain
Economic Research Working Paper No. 15
The paper summarizes key findings from the literature on how distance, relationships and ethnic ties influence knowledge flows, and describes a model that relates emigration and the diaspora to knowledge flows. It recaps a key study that reports evidence of a link from the diaspora and knowledge flows to home country manufacturing productivity. The study summarizes the ways in which intellectual property (IP) protection may influence knowledge flow patterns through incentives (market for ideas) and disincentives (anticommons). Finally, it speculates on how diaspora knowledge flows and IP may alleviate developing country low-productivity equilibria (“poverty traps”) caused by an underinvestment in specialized human capital.
An "Algorithmic Links with Probabilities" Concordance for Trademarks For Disaggregated Analysis of Trademark and Economic Data
Economic Research Working Paper No. 14
The authors propose an ‘Algorithmic Links with Probabilities' (ALP) approach to match Trademarks (TMs) data to economic data and enable these data to speak to each other. Specifically, they construct a NICE Class Level concordance that maps TM data into trade and industry categories forward and backward. This concordance allows researchers to analyze differences in TM usage across both economic and TM sectors. In this paper, the authors apply this ALP concordance for TMs to characterize patterns in TM applications across countries, industries, income levels and more. They also use the concordance to investigate some of the key determinants of international technology transfer by comparing bilateral TM applications and bilateral patent applications.