Patents

F.M. Scherer, Professor of Public Policy and Corporate Management in the Aetna Chair, Emeritus, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, US

• Contents: Introduction Part I: Economic Analysis and Policy 1. The Economics of the Patent System 2. Nordhaus’ Theory of Optimal Patent Life: A Geometric Interpretation 3. Comment on Edmund Kitch 4. The Economics of Human Gene Patents 5. The Pharmaceutical Industry and World Intellectual Property Standards 6. Economic Effects of Strengthening Pharmaceutical Patent Protection in Italy7. Post-TRIPS Options for Access to Patented Medicines in Developing Nations8. A Note on Global Welfare in Pharmaceutical Patenting Part II: Using Patent Data to Measure Technological Innovation 9. Firm Size, Market Structure, Opportunity, and the Output of Patented Interventions 10. Corporate Inventive Output, Profits, and Growth 11. Inter-Industry Technology Flows in the United States 12. Demand-Pull and Technological Invention: Schmookler Revisited 13. The Propensity to Patent 14. Technology Flows Matrix Estimation Revisited Part III: What Do the Measures Measure? 15. The Office of Technology Assessment and Forecast Industry Concordance as a Means of Identifying Industry Technology Origins 16. Exploring the Tail of Patent Invention Value Distributions 17. Citation Frequency and the Value of Patented Inventions Part IV: The Road Ahead 18. The Innovation Lottery Index

'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.'