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INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................. 1 II. TECHNICAL INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................... 3 COMPANY IDENTIFICATION & REASSIGNMENTS........................................................................................................................ 3 TECHNOLOGY CATEGORIZATIONS ............................................................................................................................................... 4 IDENTIFYING IMPORTANT PATENTS ........................................................................................................................................... 4 III. RESEARCH BACKGROUND .

This paper can be downloaded without charge at: The Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei Note di Lavoro Series Index: http://www.feem.it/web/activ/_activ.html Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection: http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract_id=XXXXXX The opinions expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect the position of The Effects of Privatization on R&D Investments and Patent Productivity Summary Over the last two decades privatization programs in different countries radically reduced the role of the State as a key player in the economic arena. We use agency theory to discuss the theoretical relationship between changes in the firm's principal-agent structure following privatization, and incentives to invest in R&D and to patent. We compare the pre and post privatization R&D effort and patenting behavior of 35 companies that were fully or partially privatized in 9 European countries through public share offering between 1980 and 1997. Results show that, after controlling for interindustry differences, privatization processes negatively affect different measures of R&D commitment. Moreover, the shift from public to private ownership leads to a significant increase in the quantity of patents granted and in their quality, measured by citations' intensity

Errors and omissions remain ours. 1 Abstract: While prior research has considered the desirability and implications of employee mobility, less research has considered factors affecting the ease of mobility. This paper explores a legal constraint on mobility —employee noncompete agreements—by exploiting Michigan’s apparently-inadvertent 1985 reversal of its enforcement policy as a natural experiment. Using a differences-in-differences approach, and controlling for changes in the auto industry central to Michigan’s economy, we find that the enforcement of noncompetes indeed attenuates mobility. Moreover, noncompete enforcement decreases mobility most sharply for inventors with firm-specific skills, and for those who specialize in narrow technical fields. The results speak to the literature on mobility constraints while offering a credibly exogenous source of variation that can extend previous research. 1

Patent trolls—firms that appropriate profits from innovation by enforcing patents against infringers—are peculiar players on markets for technologies. As buyers of patents, they are solely interested in the exclusion right, not in the underlying knowledge. Similarly, when they sell or license out patents, the transaction does not involve a technology transfer. In this paper, we empirically analyze trolls ’ patent acquisitions. We draw on a unique dataset of 753 patents acquired by known patent trolls, which we compare to 1506 patents acquired by practicing firms. Our findings regarding patent characteristics support recent theoretical propositions about the troll business model. Trolls focus on patents that have a broad scope and that lie in patent thickets. Furthermore, and contrary to common belief, we find that troll patents are of significantly higher quality than those in the control group, a result that suggests sustainability of the troll business in the future. Extrapolating from our findings, we posit that transactions involving patent trolls may only be the tip of the iceberg of “patent-only ” transactions, a conjecture with strong implications for the efficiency of markets for technologies. Managerial and policy implications are discussed.

In response to the call for a science of science policy, we discuss the contribution of indicators at the macro-level of nations from a scientometric perspective. In addition to global trends such as the rise of China, one can relate percentages of world share of publications to government expenditure in academic research. The marginal costs of improving one’s share are increasing over time. Countries differ considerably in terms of the efficiency of turning (financial) input into bibliometrically measurable output. Both funding schemes and disciplinary portfolios differ among countries. A price per paper can nevertheless be estimated. The percentages of GDP spent on academic research in different nations are significantly correlated to historical contingencies such as the percentage of researchers in the population. The institutional dynamics make strategic objectives such as the Lisbon objective of the EU—that is, spending 3 % of GDP for R&D in 2010—unrealistic. Keywords: R&D expenditure, output indicator, efficiency, nation, S&T policies

CONTENTS....................................................................................................................................... 2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY................................................................................................................ 4 1. INTRODUCTION AND STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY

September 2005Abstract: The productivity enhancing capability of cities is widely noted. Yet, while urban innovative capacity is often assumed to arise due to the close proximity of diverse elements within cities, little empirical research has attempted to associate population density with urban innovation. Thus, this research investigates how the density of a specific class of workers, the “creative class”, affects metropolitan innovation. It builds upon, extends, but in important ways departs from studies linking innovation to geographically mediated knowledge spillovers. Multivariate analyses suggest that density and creativity separately and jointly affect innovation in metropolitan areas. Keywords:

We would like to thank three anonymous readers for their helpful suggestions and to We present survey results regarding a series of hypotheses on industry structure, regulation and patent policy towards GM food crops, focussing on the stages of the industry that generate innovations and approved products for sale to the farming sector. Licensing as a means of delegating litigation and regulatory costs comes out as one of the most consistent themes in our responses. We link this practice to a twotiered industry structure, a weak relation between litigation threat and research trajectory, and a perception by our respondents that patents – as well as patent design-- are “one step removed ” from their research decisions. 2

In this paper, I explore the circumstances under which innovation processes without secrecy or intellectual property protection are viable, and where free revealing of innovations is a profit-maximizing strategy. Motivated by an empirical study of embedded Linux, I develop a duopoly model of quality competition. Firms require two complementary technologies as inputs, but differ with respect to the relative importance of these technologies. I find that a regime with compulsory revealing can lead to higher product qualities and higher profits than a proprietary regime. When the decision to reveal is endogenized, equilibria with voluntary revealing arise, again superior to the proprietary outcome.