Exploring the cross-country gap in patenting: A Stochastic Frontier Approach

This paper benchmarks the patent activities of a sample of OECD countries against the world frontier and explores the sources of the cross-country differences in patenting (regarded as a proxy for innovation). A patent production frontier is estimated for a panel of 21 OECD countries over the 1990-2002 period using Stochastic Frontier Analysis. Patenting performance for each country is decomposed into basic patenting capacity and patenting efficiency. The gap between Europe and the world leaders in terms of basic patenting capacity remains substantial with little sign of convergence over the sample period. In terms of patenting efficiency, Japan, Germany and Italy have improved their relative position in recent years. The gap in patenting performance between the UK and the world frontier is due to relative underperformance in both patenting capacity and efficiency in patent production. Institutional factors are found to be significantly associated with the patenting efficiency of an economy.     

Local context,academic entrepreneurship and open science: Publication secrecy and commercial activity among Japanese and US scientists

Like the US before it, Japan has adopted a series of policy initiatives designed to encourage the commercialization of academic science. However, such initiatives may also adversely affect “open-science”. Based on matched surveys of almost 1000 researchers in Japan and over 800 in the US, the paper examines rates of commercial activity, reasons to patent, and secrecy related to research results. In particular, it examines the extent to which participation in commercial activity is associated with publication secrecy. The results show that patenting rates are higher in Japan, while industry funding is more common in the US. In addition, the overall level of publication secrecy is greater in Japan. And, in both countries, individuals who are commercially active are less likely to share their research results through publication. But, patents are less directly linked to commercial activity in Japan than in the US, and have less impact on academic secrecy. The results suggest that academic entrepreneurship is associated with reduced participation in open science, but that the extent of adverse effects depends significantly on institutional context.     

Invention in the city: Increasing returns to patenting as a scaling function of metropolitan size

We investigate the relationship between patenting activity and the population size of metropolitan areas in the United States over the last two decades (1980-2001). We find a clear superlinear effect, whereby new patents are granted disproportionately in larger urban centers, thus showing increasing returns in inventing activity with respect to population size. We characterize this relation quantitatively as a power law with an exponent larger than unity. This phenomenon is commensurate with the presence of larger numbers of inventors in larger metropolitan areas, which we find follows a quantitatively similar superlinear relationship to population, while the productivity of individual inventors stays essentially constant across metropolitan areas. We also find that structural measures of the patent co-authorship network although weakly correlated to increasing rates of patenting, are not enough to explain them. Finally, we show that R&D establishments and employment in other creative professions also follow superlinear scaling relations to metropolitan population size, albeit possibly with different exponents.     

The effects of R&D tax credits on patenting and innovations

Norwegian business spending on R&D is low by OECD standards. To stimulate business R&D, in 2002 the Norwegian government introduced a tax-based incentive, SkatteFUNN. We analyze the effects of SkatteFUNN on the likelihood of innovating and patenting. Using a rich database for Norwegian firms, we find that projects receiving tax credits result in the development of new production processes and to some extent the development of new products for the firm. Firms that collaborate with other firms are more likely to be successful in their innovation activities. However, the scheme does not appear to contribute to innovations in the form of new products for the market or patenting.     

数字化对出版企业经营管理的影响与对策

我国出版业面临数字化大变革,产业形态的升级换代己进入加速期。目前,推动传统出版企业向数字出版转型成为行业的核心任务之一。数字化改变了企业的经营战略和出版方式,改变了企业的内容、制作、传播、销售和增值服务等所有重要出版环节,催生了新型业态和新型的营销渠道,使出版企业的经营管理面临脱胎换骨的改造。本文从出版企业产业链各重要环节入手,着重探讨了数字化对出版企业经营管理的影响,提出了出版企业为顺应数字出版潮流在经营管理上应采取的对策措施,以对出版业数字出版的良性发展有所助益。     

Categorical coherence, classification volatility and examiner-added citations

Patent applicants and examiners do not always have the same views about what constitutes a patent's relevant prior art. We propose that the processes of categorization and classification variably shape the interface between applicants and examiners by influencing assessments of similarity between new and existing technologies. Some inventions sit in technological domains that cut across the categorical boundaries implied by examiners’ patterns of specialization. Some sit in domains wherein the classification system that guides examiner searches is more volatile. In either of these circumstances, heightened ambiguity leads to more examiner-added citations on patents that are granted. We test and confirm our predictions in a sample of patents granted to semiconductor firms in 2005.     

Sales information systems in the UK financial services industry: an analysis of sophistication of use and perceived barriers to adoption

This paper evaluates the use of sales information systems (SIS) in the UK financial services sector. The study is based on a quantitative survey of a sample of sales and marketing managers in banks, building societies and insurance companies. Seventy-two usable responses were received and our analysis reveals that the systems that have been adopted are being used to provide information for little more than mailing lists. Further, the aspirations for our respondents for further data capture and analysis are low—such that their overarching goals of improving customer retention, customer relationships, and customer acquisition are unlikely to be achieved. This mismatch between our respondent's data capture and their strategic goals is associated with the further finding that our respondents place more importance on technical barriers to implementing SIS—such as fragmented market and sales information, high cost of development and poor data quality—as compared to the lowered importance placed on organizational barriers. Importantly, the latter barriers have been recognized in the literature as the true barriers to achieving the strategic potential of marketing information. We argue that the future promise of sophisticated use of the capabilities of current SIS is thus likely to be compromised, due to the lack of awareness, amongst our respondents, of the criticality of organizational and strategic barriers.     

US faculty patenting: Inside and outside the university

In a sample of 5811 patents with US faculty as inventors, 26% are assigned solely to firms rather than universities as dictated by US university employment policies and Bayh-Dole. We relate assignment to patent characteristics, university policy, and inventor field. Patents assigned to firms (whether established or start-ups with inventor as principal) are less basic than those assigned to universities suggesting firm assigned patents result from faculty consulting. Assignment to inventor-related start-ups is less likely the higher the share of revenue inventors receive from university-licensed patents. Firm assignment also varies by inventor field and whether the university is public or private.     

Propensity to patent, competition and China's foreign patenting surge

Foreign applications for Chinese patents have been growing by over 30% a year. This paper explores two hypotheses in explaining the foreign patenting surge in China: market covering and competitive threat. With foreign companies more deeply engaged with the Chinese economy, returns from protecting their intellectual property in China have increased. As domestic Chinese firms’ ability to imitate foreign technology gains strength and competition between foreign firms intensifies in the Chinese market, such competitive threat creates an urgency for protecting intellectual property. Using a database that comprises China's State Intellectual Property Office patents and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office patents, I find strong support for the competitive threat hypothesis. The estimates imply that competition between foreign firms in China can account for 36% of the annual growth of foreign patenting in China.     

Whether and how: Effects of international joint ventures on local innovation in an emerging economy

Business groups in emerging economies frequently use international joint ventures (IJV) as a channel for knowledge acquisition and technology advancement. While IJVs provide a business group with access to new technology, how successful a group is in exploiting that new knowledge for innovative purposes depends on the groups’ ability to recombine new knowledge with its existing pool of knowledge and resources. The more resources a group spends in forming IJVs with foreign partners, the less resources the group has in developing and sustaining organizational mechanisms that facilitate integration of existing ideas and resources. Following this theoretical duality, we view the IJV–innovation relationship not as an “either–or” question, but as a question of whether and how. Specifically, viewing business groups as networks of loosely coupled firms, we examine how intra-group network structure and evolving institutional environment moderates the IJV–patenting relationship in Taiwan between 1981 and 1998.     

Knowledge flows in the solar photovoltaic industry: Insights from patenting by Taiwan, Korea, and China

In this paper we extend work previously undertaken in industries such as semiconductor and flat panel displays to investigate knowledge flows from advanced countries (US, Japan and Europe) to catch-up follower countries (Taiwan, Korea and China), this time in the emergent solar photovoltaic industry. The solar photovoltaic industry is of particular interest in that it is poised between exploitation of first generation (crystalline silicon technologies) and new thin film and organic compound technologies, thus providing distinct sources of knowledge flow as measured by patent citations and linkage. For this study, we deploy a new database of 19,105 solar photovoltaic patents taken out by Taiwan, Korea and China at the USPTO over the 24 years 1984-2008, and analyse the knowledge flows revealed in these patents using a set of 12 International Patent Classification technology categories that we constructed. We demonstrate commonalities in patterns of knowledge flow between solar photovoltaic and earlier industries, but also suggestive differences, such as rising dependence of the catch-up countries on their own intra-national knowledge generation and flow, indicating their shift from imitation to innovation.     

Commercializing the laboratory: Faculty patenting and the open science environment

This paper investigates the relationship between patenting and publication of research results by university faculty members. Our study adds to the limited evidence on this topic with an empirical investigation based on a panel data set for a broad sample of university researchers. Results suggest that publication and patenting are complementary, not substitute, activities for faculty members. This is not consistent with recent concerns regarding deleterious effects of patenting on the research output of faculty members. Average citations to publications, however, appear to decline for repeat patenters, suggesting either a decrease in quality or restrictions on use associated in patent protection.     

上市公司盈利预测信息的自愿性披露:动因、效果及制约因素

本文对上市公司自愿披露盈利预测信息的动机、效果及制约因素进行了探讨。研究结果表明,自愿披露盈利预测信息在改善与投资者关系、降低筹资成本等方面具有积极作用,而盈利预测信息的供求结构、资本市场的竞争强度、信息披露成本以及经理人市场发展水平等因素制约着上市公司管理层披露盈利预测信息的意愿程度。最后对改进我国上市公司盈利预测自愿披露制度提出了建议。     

Breaking the Ivory Tower: Academic Entrepreneurship in the Life Sciences in UK and Germany

We examine engagement in commercial activities (consulting, patenting, and founding) among more than 2200 German and UK life scientists. We test hypotheses that include attributes of individuals, their material and social resources, and perceptions about values and reputation. We find that characteristics reflecting professional security, advantage and productivity are strong predictors for a greater breadth of participation in academic entrepreneurship, but not for all forms of technology transfer that we are able to test. For such academics, science and commerce go hand in hand, as they are best poised to straddle the boundary between industry and academy. We find strong support, however, that scientists perceive the value of patenting differently, and the level of reputational importance placed on scientific compared to commercial achievements matters in shaping commercial involvement.     

Interrelation between patenting and standardisation strategies: empirical evidence and policy implications

This paper analyses the relationship between strategies to protect intellectual property rights and their impact on the likelihood of joining formal standardisation processes. It is based on a small sample of European companies. On the one hand, theory suggests that the stronger the protection of own technological know-how, the higher the likelihood to join formal standardisation processes in order to leverage the value of the technological portfolio. On the other hand, companies at the leading edge are often in such a strong position that they do not need the support of standards to market their products successfully. The results of the Probit models to explain the likelihood to join standardisation processes support the latter theoretical hypothesis: the higher the patent intensities of companies, the lower is their tendency to join standardisation processes.     

LED的特性、存在问题及发展展望

LED被公认为21世纪的绿色照明,是新能源发展的方向之一。LED以传统光源不可比拟的优势获得大力支持和发展,市场规模迅速提升,新的应用领域不断拓展,影响越来越广泛和深入。但当前的LED在发展的过程中存在关键技术的缺失和市场拓展方面的障碍,如何充分发挥和利用LED的优势,积极开拓一个全新的LED应用市场,成为摆在人们面前的严峻而极富挑战的课题。本文论述了LED的优越特性、主要的应用领域以及目前存在的技术难题与市场障碍,对未来发展进行了乐观展望。     

On the relationship between environmental management, environmental innovation and patenting: Evidence from German manufacturing firms

This paper analyses empirically the relationship between environmental innovations, environmental management and patenting. In particular it tests a number of propositions on how environmental management systems and the interaction with environmentally more or less concerned stakeholders are associated with the probability of firms to pursue innovation in general (measured as patenting behaviour) and specifically environmental innovation (measured based on firm self-assessment and through patent data). In applying a negative binomial as well as binary discrete choice models the relationship is studied using data on German manufacturing firms. As a novel and important insight, the study finds that environmental innovation can be meaningfully identified using patent data and that environmental innovation defined this way is less ubiquitous than self-reported environmental innovation. It also reveals that the implementation level of environmental management systems has a positive effect exclusively on environmental process innovation, whereas it is negatively associated with the level of a firms’ general patenting activities. For environmental product innovation and patented environmental innovations a positive relationship with environmentally concerned and a negative link with environmentally neutral stakeholders is found.     

Behind the recent surge of Chinese patenting: An institutional view

This paper examines a number of forces that have possibly contributed to the explosive growth of Chinese patenting over the past decade. After a review of previous hypotheses and conventional wisdom, this study proposes an additional explanation and argues that patent subsidy programs implemented by each provincial region have played an important role in the growth of Chinese patenting. This institutional change, taking place at the province-level, has induced an increase in patent propensity among not only firms, universities, and research institutes, but also individuals. Empirical evidence based on publicly available data provides solid support for this argument. It was also found that a larger fraction of applications are granted patent rights since the implementation of such programs, suggesting that reduction in patent application quality may not be a serious concern, unless the criteria used for patent examination have been lowered.     

企业联盟知识共享动因、障碍及克服

针对企业间的知识共享问题,从企业联盟的角度首先分析了企业联盟知识共享动因和影响企业联盟知识共享的主要障碍,并提出了克服障碍的相应对策,包括着重促进企业联盟隐性知识的共享、培养联盟伙伴间良好的信任度、完善企业联盟的共享服务平台、加强企业联盟自身的管理和建立企业联盟知识共享与保护的平衡机制等。     

标准代际演化的内涵、特征及启示

标准的发展呈现出明显的代际演化的特征,根据主导因素不同,本文将标准划分成了四代:即权威主导的第一代标准、效率主导的第二代标准、技术主导的第三代标准、理念主导的第四代标准。以此为基础,论文分析了每代标准的特征,对标准的发展趋势进行了展望,探讨了标准代际演化所带来的启示。