Thesis--New York University. / Without thesis statement. Includes bibliographical references (p. 153-161) and index.

This thesis will show how patents policies can help the commercialization of inventions in Europe. Our study is mainly based on statistical material contained in the European Patent Office’s (EPO) database of published granted patents. Our study covers 407 granted patents in the field of chemistry and handling & processing in a one period year starting on 2007-12-24 and ending on 2008-12-26.Given the scope of data analysis, we found a tendency to limit the patents post (after) grant to a few states in Europe, mainly to Germany (DE), France (FR), Great Britain (GB), Italy (IT), Spain (ES), The Netherlands (NL) and Sweden (SE). This limitation in time and designated states is an indication that the markets in these states are the most important ones in Europe concerning the fields of chemistry and handling & processing for the applicant of the patent (e.g. the proprietor). In more than 70% of the number of granted patents post grant in our empirical study DE, FR and GB are the designated states. But we also found that in several of the granted patents in our thesis, Austria (AT), Belgium (BE), Switzerland (CH) and Finland (FI) are designated post grant. The numbers of designated states, post grant, in the scope of our thesis are higher compared with earlier studies applying the same method. For example Markus Reitzig’s empirical study that was made in 2004 uses 813 granted European patents, where the designation of DE, FR and GB was more significant and only 4-5 states on average were designated. It is an indication that the European market has extended the last 10 years within the fields of our study. The uniqueness of our empirical study comes from the survey of each of the 407 granted patents when it was filed at the European Patent Office (EPO) and after grant and publishing (post grant), i.e. at the beginning of the life cycle of the patent. As far as we know no earlier studies did so. Concerning our sample of applications for a European patent, the rational is the following. When the application is filed at EPO are all possible states designated, but post grant of the patent only a few state remains. Concerning the selection of the field of patenting, our consideration of data singularises chemistry and handling & processing. Clearly in the field of chemistry we found a marked incremental tendency for the transfer of patents rights. The transfer itself may be an indicator of a change either of industrial process toward R&D or a strategy toward patent policies in this specific field. The thesis tries consequently to evaluate if the EU-patent system will ease the commercialization of inventions in chemistry and handling´& processing in Europe. Especially for SMEs the EU-patent should facilitate a quicker and cheaper process. A general opinion assumes that the European patent application is too expensive for small companies. The process of establishing EU-patent was initiated 30 years ago and it will last another 5 years before it is fully possible to filing. Obviously, legal and political matters are not completely solved but that is not the direct concern of this thesis.

Thesis(Ph.D.)--Case Western Reserve University, 2009 / Title from PDF (viewed on 2009-11-23) Department of Management Includes abstract Includes bibliographical references and appendices Available online via the OhioLINK ETD Center

Scientific and technological (S&T) advances underpin opportunities for innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. Government-funded research institutions and firms perform biomedical research to generate S&T advances and enable pharmaceutical innovation. Previous research found that the number of new drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has stagnated. The observed stagnation has been interpreted as a decline in the return on research investments. The apparent decline in productivity may be due to the increasing technological difficulty of using S&T advances to develop new drugs and the organizational complexity of incorporating S&T advances generated by government-funded research institutions and firms to develop a new drug. I apply theories of organizational learning to examine how the use of S&T advances to develop new drugs affects the productivity of drug development activities, measured as the time taken to complete early stage pre-clinical research and late stage clinical development activities. I have constructed a novel data set that maps the production and utilization of S&T advances in three phases of market-oriented drug development. By measuring productivity at the project level, I am able to model productivity as the time taken to complete a R&D project as a function of three factors: (1) the technological characteristics of the drug; (2) the use of components generated by other entities; and (3) the research capabilities of the innovating firm. These models enable me to identify technological and organizational factors that affect the efficiency with which S&T advances are transformed into new drugs. Analyses indicate that different technological and organizational factors affect the productivity of pre-clinical research and clinical development. While the time taken to complete a pre-clinical research project is largely determined by the complexity and innovativeness of the drug, the time taken to complete clinical development is a function of the firm's R&D previous experience. The time taken to complete the entire drug development project is determined by the complexity of pre-clinical research and the firm's R&D capabilities. The results are discussed in detail along with policy implications. / text

This dissertation is composed of three essays looking at innovation at Academic Medical Centers. It tries to empirically explore the problem of translating knowledge from the laboratory bench to the clinic and from the clinic to the bench. Chapter 1, co-authored with Iain Cockburn, establishes the importance of inhouse complementary knowledge in firm decision to license an invention from an Academic Medical Center. By using patent data to describe the technology portfolio of firms who look at patents and then decide whether to license them or not we are able to provide a description of demand in Markets for Technology. We show that firms license inventions that are similar to own technology portfolio when such similarity is measured at a broad level using International Patent Classes. However, controlling for such broad level proximity, firms are less likely to license inventions that are similar when measured at a more granular level. Chapter 2 asks: “Are inventions by teams from Academic Medical Centers that combine cross-domain knowledge at a higher hazard of licensing than inventions by single domain teams?” Inventors’ educational background is used to assign them to the clinical (MDs) or the research domain (PhD). Contrary to our expectations, we find that inventions by cross-domain teams are at a lower hazard of licensing. Similarly, inventions by cross-domain integrated teams (at least one MD/PhD) are at a lower hazard of licensing than inventions by cross-domain distributed teams (MD and PhD on team but no MD/PhD). However, medical device inventions tend to be at a higher hazard of licensing if invented by cross-domain teams. Chapter 3, co-authored with Rob Huckman, looks at how the routine clinical work of cardiac surgeons at Academic Medical Centers can impact their innovative performance as measured by quantity and quality of academic articles that they publish. We use the procedures that these cardiac surgeons perform every year to create a measure of clinical focus to understand whether diversity of work impacts innovation. Using a panel data with surgeon fixed effects we find that early career surgeons benefit from work diversity but late-career surgeons do not.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 190-196).

This thesis analyses the supra-national application of the morality provisions in the ‘European’ patent system by the judicial/quasi-judicial decision-making in the European Union (“EU”) and European Patent Organisation (“EPOrg”). In doing so, it focuses specifically on Article 53 of the European Patent Convention and Article 6 of Directive 98/44/EC on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions, with particular reference to the overlapping institutional matrix within which these legislative provisions are applied. The intended contribution of this research is in relation to how these decision-making entities of the EPOrg and the EU interpret and apply the morality provisions in the ‘European’ patent system as a feature of their operation as institutions. The research investigates specifically: to what extent and in what ways does an analysis of the institutional framework for the application of the morality provisions by the various institutions implicated in the ‘European’ patent system reveal new insights into the current position and suggest defensible approaches to the future development of these provisions. This has particular relevance in the current context, in light of the developing unitary patent scheme examined through an institutional lens in chapter six. Importantly, the contribution of this research will not be in relation to the specific principles or tests which should be used in applying the morality provisions per se in the ‘European’ patent system, nor does it seek to contribute specifically to the normative questions in relation to what morality should mean in this context or whether the morality provisions should exist within the patent system. Such matters have been explored extensively in the literature. Instead, this thesis uses doctrinal methods to build a theoretical framework by drawing specifically on institutional theories within law and sociology, which are used to devise a novel framework for assessing institutional influences on decision-makers. This framework is then applied to the EPOrg and EU with the aim of demonstrating the differing institutional pulls on each body in their application of the morality provisions, which is used as a single exemplar to achieve this kind of institutional analysis. The overall aim of this research is to contribute to an understanding of decision-making in this specific context by reference to understandings of how institutional contexts can have profound effects upon the end outcomes of decision-making. This reveals a hitherto un-exposed perspective not only on what is happening within patent law with respect to the morality provisions, but also novel insights that may help to explain the legal landscape that has emerged, and which can inform its future development.

Patent law creates economic incentives for individuals and companies to invest in research and development, as well as to disclose publicly and commercialize new inventions. In creating these incentives, patents also impose costs on society through reduced access to new inventions. Generally, the benefits of the patent system outweigh the costs, but in new and rapidly developing industries the patent system itself can act as a barrier to the development of new technologies. This is of particular concern in the biotechnology industry where a proliferation of patents on basic and fundamental research tools risks hindering further innovation. This problem was first noted by US academics where patent rights are generally considered absolute. In contrast to the US, there are mechanisms already in place within the Canadian patent system that can be used to balance the public interest in access to technologies with the private interest promoted by patents. Two such mechanisms are studied in depth and compared: experimental use and compulsory licensing. Current conceptions of the experimental use exception to patent infringement are inadequate to deal with abuses found when research tools are patented and an expanded experimental use exception is therefore proposed to address the deficiencies found in the current law. In comparison, existing compulsory licensing provisions within the Competition and Patent Acts are generally sufficient to ensure access to needed research tools. The essential facilities doctrine developed through US antitrust laws provides assistance in determining when such compulsory licences should be granted. Compulsory licensing has certain advantages over an expanded experimental use exception: it would only be used for tools where there are no reasonable alternatives available to the scientist; and it is more likely to be compliant with Canada's international obligations. Ultimately, however, an expanded experimental use exception is preferred since it more quickly and easily puts the tools required for research into the hands of the scientists. / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate

Law of Pharmaceutical Patents in International Trade Agreements Klíčová slova: TRIPS, Patents, Pharmaceuticals Abstract Trade related aspects of intellectual property rights - especially pharmaceutical patents - were one of the most controversial topics in Trans-Pacific Partnership and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations. Whereas just thirty years ago international intellectual property law was mostly tied to the multilateral playground of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property rights (TRIPS), nowadays we can see increasing bilateralism and regionalism in this area. The agreements that build on the protection guaranteed by the TRIPS agreement are known as TRIPS-plus agreements. One of the root causes that led developed countries to promote intellectual property rights shifting from multilateralism to regionalism was the increased negotiation power tied to a smaller playground. This thesis argues that there is a shift in intellectual property rights regulations from multilateral to bilateral and regional trade agreements. This shifting serves the purpose of promoting increasingly extensive intellectual property rights protection. In its theoretical chapter the thesis describes the powers that formed the foundation of the World Trade Organisation. It...

This paper addresses the charge made by environmental groups that oil companies, since the 1970's, have been acquiring alternative energy patents, to restrict these technologies from reaching the market. The purpose of these restrictions was to protect profits from oil, natural gas and coal. In addressing this charge, I reviewed the literature to ascertain if any conclusive study had been performed to substantiate this charge. To date, none had been performed. While no conclusive study had been performed to support the environmentalist position, an evaluation of economic theory along with an examination of actual U.S. Patent Office data strongly contradicts the environmentalist view. / Master of Arts