Patents act as an incentive to innovate. However, as this paper argues, patents can lead the patent holder to rest on his laurels and at the same time discourage some innovators from innovating, reducing knowledge spillovers. The combined result of the above suggests an inverse U relationship between patent protection and output growth.

This paper studies the effects of market competition and intellectual property protection in emerging technologies such as software. In doing so, this research aims at contributing to the ongoing discussion on the possibility of broadening the scope of patent protection, in the EU, in order to cover many of the newly evolving technologies. The model indicates that optimal patent protection is case specific, while its degree of protection should vary depending on the rate of growth of the particular technology, as well as the degree of market competition. The main argument of the paper is that intellectual property protection has a dual effect, allowing the innovator to fully appropriate his R&D, at the cost of limiting the number of innovators who will be able to innovate, reducing knowledge spillovers