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ABSTRACT
I survey some recent research on the role of patents in encouraging innovation and growth in developing economies, beginning with a brief history of international patent systems and facts about the current use of patents around the world. I discuss research on the implications of patents for international technology transfer and domestic innovation. This is followed by a review of recent work by myself and co-authors on regional patent systems, the impact of patents on firm performance, and the impact on pharmaceutical patenting and domestic innovation. The conclusion suggests that patents may be relatively unimportant in development, even for middle income countries.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. [email protected]. This is a revised version of a paper written for the Inaugural Penrose Lectures at SOAS, London, in March 2018. I am grateful to the organizer, Christine Oughton, for giving me the opportunity to present this work, and to an anonymous referee for suggestions that improved the paper.
2. ‘International Convention’ here refers to the Paris Convention of 1883, which specified national treatment for inventors from all signatory countries (42 countries at the time she wrote) and a period of priority after filing in one of the countries during which filings may be submitted to other countries, along with a number of other provisions. At the present time the number of contracting parties to the Paris Convention is 177. See http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/paris/
3. See Hall and Harhoff (Citation2012) for a brief survey of the evidence on patent disclosure and Ouellette (Citation2012) for some case studies of disclosure in nanotechnology.
4. This section of the paper is a revised and updated section from Hall and Harhoff (Citation2012).
5. Ladas and Parry (2003). See also the EPO and USPTO websites.
6. For a number of reasons (linguistic differences, variations in the legal system, policies targeted to domestic inventors, etc.), this principle is not always completely achieved (de Rassenfosse et al., Citation2020).
7. There is also the GCC (Patent Office of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf), but this organization is not a signatory of the Paris Convention nor a member of WIPO. See https://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/patent_register_portal/en/docs/gcc.pdf
8. See Farrell and Shapiro (Citation2008) for detailed models of this process.
9. See https://www.epo.org/law-practice/unitary/upc/upc-faq.html for further information about the unitary patent and court.
10. Unique invention filings count a family of filings only once, where a family is defined as a set of filings that share a priority patent.
11. These offices are the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the European Patent Office (EPO), the Japanese Patent Office (JPO), the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), and the Chinese Intellectual Property Office (SIPO, renamed CNIPA in August 2018).
13. See also Maskus (Citation2004) and Branstetter (Citation2004) for earlier reviews of this literature.
14. This section is based on joint work with Christian Helmers. See Hall and Helmers (Citation2019) for details.
15. These countries are Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Moldovia, Tunisia, Morocco, and Cambodia.
16. The Unitary EU patent (currently for approximately 25 European countries) comes into force in 2018. This patent will have a single set of fees and enforcement will take place at the Unitary Patent Court. Our analysis preceded the introduction of the unitary patent by several years.
17. The official languages at the EPO are English, French, and German. None of the accession countries have these as their ‘first’ language, although most have a substantial number of speakers of these languages. Applicants to the EPO have two months after the submission of a patent filing to submit a version translated into one of the official languages.
18. This section draws from joint work with Carsten Fink and Christian Helmers (Fink, Hall, and Helmers Citation2021).
19. This section draws from joint work with Maria Jose Abud Sittler and Christian Helmers (Abud Sittler, Hall, and Helmers Citation2015).
20. Some examples: India’s Glivec decision, 1 April 2013 – imatinib mesylate (beta-crystalline form of an existing anti-cancer drug) rejected by Supreme Court for obviousness. Brazil – Projeto de Lei n° 5.402/2013 (includes provision similar to paragraph 3(d) of India’s Patent Act). South Africa – proposed National Policy on IP: ‘[Legislation] should exclude diagnostic, therapeutic and surgical methods from patentability, including new uses of known products, as is the case under the TRIPS agreement.’ See Sampat and Shadlen (Citation2017).
21. This was a complex undertaking; for details on the match and the identification of secondary patents, see Abud Sittler, Hall, and Helmers (Citation2015).