摘要
作为专利许可形式之一,开放许可是促进专利技术成果转化与知识溢出的重要制度设计。2021年我国引入该机制,但在具体机制设置上尚存在争议。在比较视角下,分析英国与德国专利开放许可制度具体机制设计上的异同,整理2004-2020年在两国登记开放的专利样本,与专利申请人信息、专利引用信息相匹配,使用异时双重差分法(DID)检验两国开放许可制度对于申请人专利技术扩散的激励效应。实证分析发现,英德两国开放许可制度对于知识溢出的激励效应较为有限,并没有呈现显著正效应。德国开放许可制度提供了相对高额的专利费用减免额度,拥有更多本国中小型企业的登记使用,英国开放许可制度对于外国大型企业的知识溢出效应更为显著,呈现更多面向外国企业的强制许可替代制度功能。除此之外,专利开放前的被引数量对知识溢出效应呈现显著交互作用,而专利新颖性特征的交互效应不显著。
Open licensing is an important approach that promotes technology commercialization and spillover.It provides the"indigent inventor"with the opportunity to keep patent protection long enough to be able to commercialize it,and encourages non-exclusive licensing to increase access to patented invention.In some countries,it is named"License of Right"or"Willingness to License".However,there is a long debate over the patent open-license system.On the one side,the 50%reduction in renewal fees is still insufficient to incentivize patent owners,wherein the cost savings are significantly lower than the rent dissipation made by non-exclusive licensing.On the other side,the fee reduction may encourage patent trolls or large companies to renew low-quality patents,which would have a negative effect on subsequent innovation.Thus,this paper combines qualitative and quantitative methods to evaluate the patent open licensing systems in the UK and Germany,for these two countries have implemented the system since 1919 and 1936,respectively,and receive a stable number of registrations per year.First of all,a comparison of the system designs and registration trends in the UK and Germany is made.The basic system settings in the two countries are basically the same but differ in three main ways:(1)German system allows patent applicants to declare open licensing on the day of the patent application while UK requires at least receiving the grant decision;(2)although patent owners who have declared the open licensing could enjoy a half-price discount on patent fees in both of UK and Germany,the bases are different for the total amount of patent fees in UK is approximately$6589(41807 RMB),while in Germany it can be as high as$16067(over 100000 RMB);(3)the UK system is often used as an alternative for compulsory licensing,and the UK Intellectual Property Office(UKIPO)has conducted a comprehensive and intelligent information platform,which allows the public to access relevant information about registered patents.For the empirical analysis,this paper collects the open licensing patent registration information disclosed by UKIPO and the German Patent and Trademark Office(DPMA)from 2004 to 2020.Then,it extracts more patent information to catch the characteristics of the declared patents.In general,Germany and Japan are two of the most common patent owners who have declared open licensing.From the perspective of the patent owners,small enterprises account for 34.5%,large enterprises account for 40.3%of the total declared patents in Germany,and large enterprises account for 67.19%of the total in the UK.According to the distribution of technology fields,the majority of declared patents are concentrated in complex technologies such as machinery,information and communication in both the UK and Germany.Finally,this paper uses a time varying difference-in-differences(DID)approach to test the incentive effects of declaring opening licensing on technology diffusion.The treatment group consists of patents with open license registrations in Germany or the UK,while the control group consists of patents with valid registrations in Germany or the UK,matched exactly one-on-one by using feature variables such as the nationality of the applicant(Applicant_Ctryi),the year of patent application(Appln_Filing_Yeari),the authorizing agency(Appln_auti),the technical category(Tec Sectioni)the size of portfolio(Applicant_Sizei),and the number of backward citations(nBWDi).The regression results show that no significant knowledge spillover incentive effect is observed overall.The interactions of the treatment group are generally insignificantly or significantly negative.The underlying economic interpretation can be explained as follows:overall,the knowledge spillover effect of the open license patent system in Germany and the UK is very limited,only reflected in increasing citations to registered patents of large foreign companies;besides,the study tests the moderating effect of open licensing and patent novelty,and it is proven to be significantly positive,thus,after the declaration,incremental patents are easier to receive the increasing attention from the market.In other words,the more existing technology references and subsequent patent citations the patents have received before the declaration,the more effectively the open licensing system can be used to accelerate knowledge spillover.
作者
刘夏
陈栗
王欣宇
Liu Xia;Chen Li;Wang Xinyu(Shanghai International College of Intellectual Property,Tongji University,Shanghai 200092,China;Department of Economics,University of Gothenburg,Gothenburg 40010,Sweden)
出处
《科技进步与对策》
CSSCI
北大核心
2024年第12期105-115,共11页
Science & Technology Progress and Policy
基金
国家自然科学基金青年项目(72304209)
同济大学中央高校基本科研业务费专项资金项目(22120220312)。
关键词
专利开放许可
准自然实验
英德专利比较
知识溢出
Patent Open Licensing
Quasi-natural Experiment
Patent Comparison between the UK and Germany
Knowledge Spillover
