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On the price elasticity of demand for patents
Gaétan de
Rassenfosse & Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie
Oxford
Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Volume 74, Issue 1, 2012, Pages 58-77
Abstract
This
paper provides an analysis of the impact of patent fees on the demand
for patents. It presents a dataset of fees since 1980 at the European
(EPO), the US and the Japanese patent offices. Descriptive statistics
show that fees have severely decreased at the EPO over the 1990s,
converging towards the level of fees in the US and Japan. The estimation
of dynamic panel data models suggests that the price elasticity of
demand for patents is about -0.30. These results suggest that the laxity
of fee policy at the EPO has significantly contributed to the rising
propensity to patent. Keywords:
Patent cost, Patenting fees,
Price elasticity, Patent systems, Propensity to patent JEL
classification codes:
O30; O31; O38; O57 Links:
Published version; Working Paper version; Cannot download? Contact me!
Download the dataset on patent fees.
Author's
notes
This article: - Shows that fees have severely
decreased at the EPO over the 1990s, converging towards the level of
fees in the US and Japan;
- Estimates dynamic panel data models
of patent applications at the EPO, the USPTO and the JPO and finds that
the price elasticity of demand for patents is about -0.30;
- Estimates that 20 per cent of the increase in patent filings at the
EPO over the period 1995 to 2001 can be attributed to the decrease in
fees;
- Recommends using patent fees as a policy tool to help
curb down patent filings and increase patent offices' budget.
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