Determinants of patent rights: A cross-national study (original) (raw)

This paper presents an index of patent rights for 110 countries for the period . The index is used to examine what factors or characteristics of economies determine how strongly patent rights will be protected. The evidence does indicate that more developed economies tend to provide stronger protection. But the underlying factors which influence patent protection levels are the country's level of research and development (R&D) activity, market environment, and international integration, which are correlated with its level of development. The results qualify, however, that R&D activity influences patent .protection levels after a nation's research sector reaches a critical size. An implication of this is that to raise patent protection levels in weakly protecting countries, it is important to foster a significant research base in those countries and thereby create incentives for protecting patent rights. © 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. how strongly a country will provide patent protection. The paper asks, for example, whether richer countries provide stronger protection, whether countries provide stronger protection as they develop, and whether such rights are better protected in democracies, freer markets, educated societies, in countries exposed to international trade, or in regions with higher levels of innovative activity. In addition to quantifying the levels of patent protection across countries and investigating their determinants, this study has significance for a variety of applications. The index can be used to investigate the impact of patent rights on innovation, trade, direct foreign investment, and technology diffusion, 0048-7333/97/$17.00