German Patents Research Articles

Beyond trading: knowledge spillovers and learning-by-exporting in global value chains

Abstract Does exporting intermediate goods induce learning from importers? In this paper, we examine to what extent learning from German industries can be explained by knowledge spillovers, channeled through the export of intermediate goods. Our study is based on a sample of 27 German trade partners in 14 manufacturing industries for the period 2004–2016. Using data on patent citations and trading in intermediate goods, we find support for the widely known “learning-by-exporting” hypothesis. Our analyses reveal that citations to German patents are positively related to exported intermediate goods weighted by German R&D expenditure. The relationship between these spillovers and learning seems to be particularly strong in certain industries. We also show that the level of absorptive capacity of the exporting industry-country plays a positive role in mediating these spillovers.

Intellectual Property Protection - German Patents and International Competition

Intellectual Property Protection - German Patents and International Competition

Modelling the large and dynamically growing bipartite network of German patents and inventors

Abstract To explore the driving forces behind innovation, we analyse the dynamic bipartite network of all inventors and patents registered within the field of electrical engineering in Germany in the past two decades. To deal with the sheer size of the data, we decompose the network by exploiting the fact that most inventors tend to only stay active for a relatively short period. We thus propose a Temporal Exponential Random Graph Model with time-varying actor set and sufficient statistics mirroring substantial expectations for our analysis. Our results corroborate that inventor characteristics and team formation are essential to the dynamics of invention.

Patents, War and Peace. The Resilience of the International Patent Order Through the First World War

By the end of the 19th century, an international order had emerged for patents, allowing business actors to use patents in many countries concurrently, and thus supporting a new phase in the development of industrial capitalism. Centred on Europe in spite of a universalistic discourse and important transatlantic connections, this international order was shaken by the outbreak of the First World War. Indeed, patents were impacted by provisions of economic warfare. These measures, although similar in their principle in all warring countries, were however executed to a varying degree, depending on the extent of economic dependence or fear of retaliation. These differences also manifested during the negotiation of the Treaty of Versailles, the analysis of which contradicts the idea of a general expropriation of German patents. Thus escaping disintegration, the international patent order was afterwards progressively restored on its pre-1914 foundations.

Try again: Ministry revises German Patents Act Modernization Bill

Abstract Here we go again: The German Ministry of Justice publishes an amended draft of the Patents Act Modernization Bill.

Still some way to go: Federal Ministry of Justice proposes to modernize the German Patents Act

Abstract Although Germany is a leading venue for patent litigation, there is a need to update the law every now and then. Does the Bill, which is currently under discussion, meet the reasonable expectations of users of the system? The author applauds the proposal to make the “confidentiality club” available for patent infringement cases. The legal framework for enforcing injunctions, by contrast, requires additional attention. We are only half-way there.

The Role of Leukotrienes Inhibitors in the Management of Chronic Inflammatory Diseases.

Leukotrienes are powerful mediators of inflammation and interact with specific receptors in target cell membrane to initiate an inflammatory response. Thus, Leukotrienes (LTs) are considered to be potent mediators of inflammatory diseases including allergic rhinitis, inflammatory bowel disease and asthma. Leukotriene B4 and the series of cysteinyl leukotrienes (C4, D4, and E4) are metabolites of arachidonic acid metabolism that cause inflammation. The cysteinyl LTs are known to increase vascular permeability, bronco-constriction and mucus secretion. To review the published data for leukotriene inhibitors of plant origin and the recent patents for leukotriene inhibitors, as well as their role in the management of inflammatory diseases. Published data for leukotrienes antagonists of plant origin were searched from 1938 to 2019, without language restrictions using relevant keywords in both free text and Medical Subject Headings (MeSH terms) format. Literature and patent searches in the field of leukotriene inhibitors were carried out by using numerous scientific databases including Science Direct, PubMed, MEDLINE, Google Patents, US Patents, US Patent Applications, Abstract of Japan, German Patents, European Patents, WIPO and NAPRALERT. Finally, data from these information resources were analyzed and reported in the present study. Currently, numerous anti-histaminic medicines are available including chloropheneremine, brompheniramine, cetirizine, and clementine. Furthermore, specific leukotriene antagonists from allopathic medicines are also available including zileuton, montelukast, pranlukast and zafirlukast and are considered effective and safe medicines as compared to the first generation medicines. The present study reports leukotrienes antagonistic agents of natural products and certain recent patents that could be an alternative medicine in the management of inflammation in respiratory diseases. The present study highlights recent updates on the pharmacology and patents on leukotriene antagonists in the management of inflammation respiratory diseases.

Value and barriers in the creation of intellectual property in advanced manufacturing: a country comparison

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to determine to what extent small sized and periphery-located firms compensate the comparative disadvantages of big centrally located firms, through patent ownership agreements with other agents, notably research institutes.Design/methodology/approachThe authors develop an empirical study of patents from two completely different economic areas, a central and a peripheral one, represented by Germany and Spain, respectively, in the domain of the Key Enabling Technology (KET) of advanced manufacturing technologies in robotics and automation. Comparing the population of 211 Spanish patents granted with a random sample of 500 German patents, from the files of the US Patent and Trademark Office, the authors obtain and test a series of logistic regression functions taking the predicted possibilities to develop patents with more citations, as a proxy for their value.FindingsWhereas big companies from central locations do not obtain more heavily cited patents from sharing their R&D activity with other firms or research institutes, smaller manufacturing firms in peripheral areas, namely, Spain, may find this advantageous. Additionally, patents containing fewer cited articles and citations of previous patents, tend to be cited more frequently. Finally, this same outcome is also observed with patents showing shorter time between the application and grant.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study on patent value which examines the KET of advanced manufacturing technologies in robotics and automation, comparing a central to a peripheral geographic environment, and determining the number, diversity and size of patent assignees. The results prove relevant in general for manufacturing businesses, especially in the Machine-Tool and machinery producing industry. Overwhelmingly, these firms tend to be SMEs basing their marketing activity entirely on a Business-to-Business (B2B) focus, and facing serious obstacles for R&D activity.

A novel technology-industry concordance table based on linked inventor-establishment data

Mapping technologies into industries is frequently required in empirical innovation studies, but many concordances only provide coarse mappings. We develop a novel concordance between industries and technologies making use of linked inventor-employee data for a large sample of German patents filed at the European Patent Office between 1999 and 2011. Inventors listed on these patents are matched and disambiguated with German social security records. Employment data recorded in this database include detailed industry codes describing the industrial activities of the inventors’ establishments. These linked microdata allow us to identify the precise industrial origin of inventions, combine them with technology classifications from the inventors’ patents and to generate novel concordance tables. We evaluate our approach by comparing the concordances with existing work. Moreover, in an empirical application, we find that patent based indicators represent valid proxies for the innovation performance of industries and thus help to measure innovation in the absence of other survey based indicators. Service sector innovation activities, however, appear to be barely represented by the patenting activities of inventors and establishments.

Compulsory licensing and innovation – Historical evidence from German patents after WWI

Compulsory licensing allows governments to license patented inventions without the consent of patent owners. Intended to mitigate the potential welfare losses from enforcing foreign-owned patents, many developing countries use this policy to improve access to drugs that are covered by foreign-owned patents. The effects of compulsory licensing on access to new drugs, however, are theoretically ambiguous: Compulsory licensing may encourage innovation by increasing competition or discourage innovation by reducing expected returns to R&D. Empirical evidence is rare, primarily because contemporary settings offer little exogenous variation in compulsory licensing. We address this empirical challenge by exploiting an event of compulsory licensing as a result of World War I when the US Trading with the Enemy Act made all German-owned patents available for licensing to US firms. Firm-level data on German patents indicate that compulsory licensing was associated with a 30 percent increase in invention by German firms whose inventions were licensed.

Does Compulsory Licensing Discourage Invention? Evidence from German Patents after the US Trading-with-the-Enemy Act

Compulsory licensing allows governments to license patented inventions without the consent of patent owners. Intended to mitigate the potential welfare losses from enforcing foreign-owned patents, many developing countries use this policy to improve access to drugs that are covered by foreign-owned patents. The effects of compulsory licensing on access to new drugs, however, are theoretically ambiguous: Compulsory licensing may encourage innovation by increasing competition or discourage innovation by reducing expected returns to R&D. Empirical evidence is rare, primarily because contemporary settings offer little exogenous variation in compulsory licensing. We address this empirical challenge by exploiting an event of compulsory licensing as a result of World War I when the US Trading with the Enemy Act made all German-owned patents available for licensing to US firms. Firm-level data on German patents indicate that compulsory licensing was associated with a 30 percent increase in invention by German firms whose inventions were licensed.

Which Patent Systems are Better for Inventors?

International comparisons of patent systems are essential to harmonization treaties and to analyze economic growth. Yet these comparisons often rely on little but conventional wisdom. This paper develops an empirical method to compare the economic strength and quality of patent systems by using renewal analysis of matched patents in different countries (same patent family). Comparing patents on the same inventions filed at the EPO for Germany and in the US, we find that the German patents generate substantially greater market power than their US equivalents, especially for small inventors. Also, the average US patent has relatively lower economic value (“quality”).

Climate-friendly technologies in the mobile air-conditioning sector: a patent citation analysis

The development of climate-friendly technologies and its diffusion across countries is of key importance to slow climate change. This paper considers technologies in the mobile air-conditioning (MAC) sector which is a major contributor of fluorinated greenhouse gas emissions. Using patents as an indicator of innovations and patent citations as a proxy for knowledge flows, the inducement of new environmental and non-environmental technologies and knowledge diffusion within and across countries are analysed. The focus is on direct abatement of fluorinated greenhouse gases excluding energy efficiency improvements. We find that most environmental MAC patents originate from the US and Germany. Most knowledge flows take place within countries. Regarding cross-country flows most environmental knowledge diffuses from French and German patents, which is likely to be a result of regulatory activities in Europe and intensified research on environmentally benign MAC systems. Yet, this exchange of knowledge is not very intensive and stable so that the impact of EU regulations on US and Japanese patenting behaviour seems to be fairly weak.

Inventor collaboration over distance: a comparison of academic and corporate patents

Patenting is often done in collaboration with other inventors to integrate complementary and additional knowledge. The paper takes a spatial view of this issue and analyses the distances between inventors of German patents. We compare the distances between invention teams of German patent applications from 1993–2006 and distinguish between academic and corporate teams and those consisting of researchers from both domains (‘mixed teams’). Due to their different institutional backgrounds different types of proximity guide their spatial search for partners. The basic finding is that regional collaboration clearly prevails. However, the distance between collaborating inventors of corporate patents exceeds that of inventors of academic patents, but the largest distances can be found in science–industry collaborative patents. When excluding directly neighboured collaboration, which is likely to be in-house collaboration, the differences between academic and corporate teams vanish, but mixed teams still overcome longer distances.

Assessing the value of patent portfolios: an international country comparison

Patent counts have been extensionally used to measure the innovative capacities of countries. However, since economic values of patents may differ, simple patent counts may give misleading rankings, if the patents of one country are on average more valuable than those of another. In the literature several methods have been proposed, which shall adjust for these differences. However, often these do not possess a solid economic micro-foundation and therefore are often ad-hoc and arbitrary procedures. In this paper, we intend to present an adjustment method that is based on the analysis of renewal decisions. The method builds on the theoretical model used in Schankerman and Pakes (1986) and Besson (2008) but goes beyond both approaches in that it recovers the important long tail of the value distribution. It also transfers Besson's (2008) econometric methodology (applicable to the organisational structures of the US Patent and Trademark Office) also to the European Patent Office which is necessary, since each application here may split up into several national patent documents. The analysis is performed for 22 countries. Exemplarily, we find that in the cohort of 1986 patent applications, Danish patents are about 60% more valuable than the average patent. German patents are a bit below average. Japanese patents are of least value. In the cohort of 1996, Danish patents lose some of their lead but are still more valuable than the average. While German are a bit above average, Japanese patents even fall further behind (possibly due to the economic downturn in since the mid of 1990ies).

Interregional mobility, productivity and the value of patents for prolific inventors in France, Germany and the UK

Regional creative resources include inventors. Policies conducive to inventors' productivity or attracting productive inventors promote regional development. We build on prior work on inventor mobility and productivity, analyzing German, French and British patents filed in the US by 7,500 prolific inventors (fifteen or more inventions). We measure inventor mobility across regions, companies and technologies. We analyze the relationships among mobility, productivity and value. We find geographic mobility increases inventor productivity in the UK and France but not in Germany and geographic mobility is not related to the value of inventions except in Germany where it has a negative effect.

O uso de patentes como fonte de informação em dissertações e teses de engenharia química: o caso da Unicamp

Acredita-se que as patentes são pouco exploradas como documentos fornecedores de informações; tanto por empresas, quanto por instituições de pesquisa, universidades, etc. Nesse contexto, o presente artigo teve a finalidade de investigar se os documentos de patentes são utilizados como fonte de informação nos trabalhos acadêmicos (dissertações de mestrado e teses de doutorado). Para isso, foram selecionados trabalhos da área da engenharia química, do período de 2000 a 2007, da Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Os dados foram coletados através das patentes citadas e referenciadas nos trabalhos acadêmicos e a amostra utilizada foi de 586 trabalhos. Os resultados dessa pesquisa evidenciaram que 16,4% dos trabalhos analisados utilizaram patentes como fontes de informação e citaram esse tipo de documento. Além disso, este trabalho indicou que as patentes americanas são as mais citadas por trabalhos da UNICAMP (63,8%). Porcentagens menores ficaram para as patentes japonesas (9,0%), patentes européias (7,2%), patentes inglesas (4,0%), patentes alemãs (3,2%) e patentes brasileiras (2,7%).AbstractIt is believed that patents are not fully explored as information providers documents, both by companies and by research institutions or universities. In this context, this paper aimed to investigate whether patents are used as information sources in academic works (master's dissertations and doctoral theses). For this, works of chemical engineering from 2000 to 2007 of the State University of Campinas, Brazil (UNICAMP) were selected. Data were collected through the patents cited and referenced in academic works and the sample comprised 586 items. The results of this study have demonstrated that 16.4% of the works analyzed have used patents as information sources and have also cited this kind of document. In addition, results indicated that U.S. patents are the most cited by researchers from UNICAMP (63,8%). Lower percentages were observed for Japanese patents (9,0%), European patents (7,2%), English patents (4,0%), German patents (3,2%) and Brazilian patents (2,7%).

Is cross-border relief in European patent litigation at an end?

The ECJ decisions in GAT v LuK and Roche v Primus appear to have prohibited cross-border relief, bringing the Dutch and the German patents courts (which were willing to grant such relief in certain circumstances) in line with the English Patents Court (which has always refused to grant such relief). However, the decisions still enable the Dutch and German patents courts to continue to grant cross-border relief in certain circumstances. Whether they will do so remains to be seen. Before the ECJ decisions, the Dutch Supreme Court considered that issues of infringement and validity of a European patent—which by virtue of the European Patent Convention (‘EPC’) is construed (at least in theory) in the same way across EPC Member States1— are separable. Accordingly Article 22(4) of the Brussels Regulation, which expressly reserves jurisdiction regarding patent validity to the courts of the country where the patent is registered, does not prevent a national court from determining the issue of infringement of a European patent for other EU Member States and, in appropriate circumstances, granting cross-border relief.

Edison’s Anesthetic

American inventor and businessman Thomas Alva Edison is legendary for his contributions to such technologies as the lightbulb, the telephone, the phonograph, and motion pictures, among many others.1In his lifetime, Edison obtained 1,093 US patents and some 1,239 patents in other countries. Little known among these efforts was his “improved anesthetic compound.”In the summer of 1882, George F. Shrady (Founder and Editor, Medical Record 1866–1904) (1837–1907), reported that Thomas Edison invented a new anesthetic made of chloroform, ether, alcohol, and camphor and had applied for British and German patents.2The witty but misinformed editor added, “Edison may wish to use it on his stockholders until electric light was in successful operation.”In fact, the “anesthetic” actually was an analgesic liniment that Edison had prepared in early 1878. He named it Polyform and advertised it for “neurologic pain.” Polyform was a mixture of chloroform, ether, camphor gum, alcohol, chloral hydrate, morphine, and oils of peppermint and clove. Edison believed that his compound’s various analgesics would potentiate each other and that the mixture would attack pain in a “shotgun manner.”3In 1879, Edison applied for a US patent but, for unknown reasons, withdrew his application shortly thereafter. In February 1880, the British patent No. 599 was granted to his London agents for a slightly modified compound.3The editor of the Medical Record was misinformed: Edison did not apply for a German patent3(written personal communication, Hubert Rothe, Director, Information Department, German Patent and Trademark Office, Munich, Germany, May 2004).Topical ether and, especially, chloroform had been widely used for musculoskeletal and neurologic pains since their discovery.4At the time of Edison’s invention, not only were liniments of chloroform and of camphor used in the United States,5but there also existed lotions made of chloroform, camphor, ether, alcohol, morphine, and chloral hydrate.6One, Sankt Jakob Oel, had been popular in Germany since the mid-1870s. It was marketed in the United States during the 1880s under the name of St. Jacob’s Oil by the firms of C.A. Voegeler in Baltimore and Kroeger Ltd. of Cincinnati. Its formula is given in several US formularies.6–8Whether Edison knew of St. Jacob’s Oil when he invented his Polyform or whether he learned of its existence later on is unknown. The latter may explain why he did not apply for a German patent and withdrew his US application.The authors thank Gregory J. Higby, Ph.D. (Professor and Director of the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, Madison, Wisconsin), Michael A. Flannery, Ph.D. (Associate Professor and Associate Director for Historical Collections, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama), and Hubert Rothe (Director, Information Department, German Patent and Trademark Office, Munich, Germany) for their valuable information.*School of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama. ajwright@uab.edu

The Dependence of Innovativeness on the Local Firm Population—An Empirical Study of German Patents

Local clusters and the co‐location of firms are repeatedly related to a high level of innovativeness in the literature. The underlying argument is that firms that are co‐located with other firms of the same industry undertake more innovation than “lonely” firms because of spillovers, local labour markets and cooperations. These arguments are tested here for four industries in Germany. To this end, four different hypotheses about the impact of co‐location on the innovativeness of firms are formulated and empirically compared. The results show that the innovativeness of firms indeed depends on the existence of other firms in the same region. However, the relationship between co‐location and innovation output depends on the industry studied.