Collaboration and Disclosure in Dynamic R&D Races

43 Pages Posted: 16 Mar 2012

See all articles by Andrea Blasco

Andrea Blasco

Joint Research Center of the European Commission; Harvard University - Institute for Quantitative Social Science

Date Written: March 13, 2012

Abstract

Recent models of multi-stage R&D have shown that a system of weak intellectual property rights may lead to faster innovation by inducing firms to share intermediate technological knowledge. However, I argue that the positive effect of weak intellectual property regimes on the sharing of intermediate technological knowledge vanishes when technology is complex, as is likely to be the case in many high-tech industries. Under this condition, technologically complex discoveries that are disclosed by a technological leader can be ignored by the follower, who does so when it can free ride off the research of the rival, since ignoring the disclosure encourages more research by the leader.

Keywords: dynamic patent races, intellectual property rights, imitation, knowledge sharing, cumulative innovation, not invented here syndrome

JEL Classification: L5, L2, D9

Suggested Citation

Blasco, Andrea, Collaboration and Disclosure in Dynamic R&D Races (March 13, 2012). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1961356 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1961356

Andrea Blasco (Contact Author)

Joint Research Center of the European Commission ( email )

Rue Des Champs Du Mars
Brussels, B-1049
Belgium

Harvard University - Institute for Quantitative Social Science ( email )

1737 Cambridge St.
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

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