TY  - BOOK
AU  - Lerner,Josh
ED  - National Bureau of Economic Research.
TI  - Patent Protection and Innovation Over 150 Years
T2  - NBER working paper series
PY  - 2002///
CY  - Cambridge, Mass.
PB  - National Bureau of Economic Research
N1  - June 2002; Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers
N2  - The paper seeks to understand the impact of the patent system on innovation by examining shifts in the strength of patent protection across sixty countries and a 150-year period. An examination of 177 policy changes reveals that strengthening patent protection appears to have few positive effects on patent applications by entities in the country undertaking the policy change, whether filings in Great Britain or the nation making the policy change are considered. Cross-sectional analyses suggest that the impact of patent protection-enhancing shifts were greater in nations with weaker initial protection and greater economic development, consistent with economic theory. I address concerns about the endogeneity of these changes by employing an instrumental variable approach
UR  - https://www.nber.org/papers/w8977
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w8977
ER  -