<p>Problem:</p><p>The problem under consideration is the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) agreement called Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and its impact on equal access to essential drugs in the least developed countries. Especially the countries of sub-Saharan Africa lack such access. Moreover, these countries are the ones where severe diseases like AIDS/HIV, tuberculosis and malaria are widely spread over the population. The authors focus also on patents and their obligatory length imposed through the articles of TRIPS agreement.</p><p>Purpose:</p><p>The purpose of the thesis is to describe and analyse the impact of global trade regulations (TRIPS in particular) on the accessibility of essential drugs in developing countries, and to come up with a possible solution as the way of coping with the problem is concerned. The investigation includes detailed description of solutions accomplished by Brazil and India, and their importance for the least developed countries, in terms of importing generic pharmaceuticals from these.</p><p>Method:</p><p>Qualitative method was used in order to obtain data from interviews with citizens of Botswana, Ghana, Ethiopia and South Africa for better understanding of the situation in these countries. Furthermore, the theories included in the theoretical background of this paper were gathered through deep research in the field of studies regarding Intellectual Property protection and World Trade Organization’s agreements and other legal acts.</p><p>Results:</p><p>The result of the analysis is a model developed from the Game-Theoretic Model, and called Developed Game-Theoretic Model. It is a tool which the least developed countries can use while negotiating prices of medicines with pharmaceutical companies, having the possibility of importing the pharmaceuticals from other countries manufacturing the patented product under compulsory licensing.</p>

<p>The use of positioning systems in a vehicle is a research intensive field. In the first part of this thesis an increase in new applications is disclosed through a mapping of patent documents on how positioning systems can support adaptive cruise control, gear changing systems and engine control. Many ideas are presented and explained and the ideas are valued. Furthermore, a new method for selective catalytic reduction (SCR) control using a positioning system is introduced. It is concluded that look-ahead control, where the vehicle position in relation to the upcoming road section is utilized could give better fuel efficiency, lower emissions and less brake, transmission and engine wear.</p><p>In the second part of this thesis a real time test platform for predictive speed control algorithms has been developed and tested in a real truck. Previously such algorithms could</p><p>only be simulated. In this thesis an algorithm which utilizes model predictive control (MPC) and dynamic programming (DP) been implemented and evaluated. An initial comparative fuel test shows a reduction in fuel consumption when the MPC algorithm is used.</p>

This paper provides support for the view that there should be a close link between inno-vation and export performance. In essence it is argued that successful exporting requires penetration of a market through an innovation process. For a small country like Sweden depending on production of knowledge intensive goods and product competition, to re-tain its international competitiveness, this notion is likely to hold true. Against this background an analysis aimed at testing to what extent Swedish export capacity can be determined by innovation is presented. In addition the factors perceived as influencing this capacity are identified and their relative importance is assessed. Specifically patent and R&amp;D data are treated as the main proxies for innovation activity. Moreover the rela-tive export and innovation performance among the Swedish municipalities is analyzed. A spatial version of the product cycle model is introduced as it explicitly captures the process of innovation, relocation and export dynamics and forms a link to the succeed-ing theorizing. In particular it suggests that certain regions are more likely to be the lo-cation for innovative exporting firms due to advantageous intrinsic favorable attributes specific to these locations. In the specified model such attributes that are assumed to in-fluence export capacity in the Swedish municipalities are defined as local, intra- and in-terregional accessibility to research, average number of patents and density of employ-ment. Regression results suggest that accessibility to research from within the munici-pality exerts the principal effect on export and innovation capacity. Moreover the influ-ence of accessibility to industry R&amp;D dominates over the university variable in both re-gressions, with total and per kilogram export value as dependents. In addition regional size exerts a rather strong positive effect on total export value.

Problem: The problem under consideration is the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) agreement called Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and its impact on equal access to essential drugs in the least developed countries. Especially the countries of sub-Saharan Africa lack such access. Moreover, these countries are the ones where severe diseases like AIDS/HIV, tuberculosis and malaria are widely spread over the population. The authors focus also on patents and their obligatory length imposed through the articles of TRIPS agreement. Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to describe and analyse the impact of global trade regulations (TRIPS in particular) on the accessibility of essential drugs in developing countries, and to come up with a possible solution as the way of coping with the problem is concerned. The investigation includes detailed description of solutions accomplished by Brazil and India, and their importance for the least developed countries, in terms of importing generic pharmaceuticals from these. Method: Qualitative method was used in order to obtain data from interviews with citizens of Botswana, Ghana, Ethiopia and South Africa for better understanding of the situation in these countries. Furthermore, the theories included in the theoretical background of this paper were gathered through deep research in the field of studies regarding Intellectual Property protection and World Trade Organization’s agreements and other legal acts. Results: The result of the analysis is a model developed from the Game-Theoretic Model, and called Developed Game-Theoretic Model. It is a tool which the least developed countries can use while negotiating prices of medicines with pharmaceutical companies, having the possibility of importing the pharmaceuticals from other countries manufacturing the patented product under compulsory licensing.

This study provides an empirical analysis of patent litigation and innovation within high-tech firms. There is a significant drop in R&D over the course of the eleven year period of interest. However, the results do not show litigation causing a significant effect on R&D investments as either a percentage of revenue or a percentage change from year to year. Secondly, there was found to be a slight drop in percentage change of patents earned per year over time, but this was not found to be significantly caused by litigation. However there is strong evidence to support that increased litigation does cause the percentage of patents classified as utility patents to fall. Since this ratio of utility patents per total patents can be viewed as an indicator of innovative quality, this trend suggests that litigation does cause overall innovative quality of a firm’s efforts to diminish.

This thesis comprises three essays on immigration, innovation, and trade. The first essay utilizes an enhanced gravity model to estimate the effect of lagged immigration waves on Canadian imports and exports, by province. Empirically, this model was tested using Canadian data on import and export flows to the top 40 countries of origin for immigrants to Canada based upon the composition of the most recent wave of immigrants. The results are consistent with previous studies, where immigrants increased both import and export trade flows. By adding the provincial immigrant wave variable, it was also found that new immigrants affect imports almost immediately, whereas for exports, the immigrant effect is not significant for at least 5 years and may take as long as 20 years to reach full impact.<p>The second essay utilizes an enhanced gravity model to estimate the effect of innovative capability on Canadian provincial exports to Canadas top 60 importing countries. Empirically, this model was tested using Canadian data on export flows to Canadas top 60 importing countries. The results are supportive of a provinces innovative capability leading to increased exports, where innovative capacity is measured by international patents, scientific journal articles, and R&D expenditures. For example, in terms of innovative capacity as measured by international (U.S.) patents, provinces with higher levels of international patents had higher levels of total exports, where this effect was greater for exports to developing versus developed countries. Furthermore, provincial R&D expenditures as well as the number of provincial scientific publications (in addition to provincial international patents) were found to be significant drivers in increasing the amount of provincial hi-tech exports to developed countries.<p>The third essay utilizes an augmented national ideas production function to examine skilled immigrants impact on Canadian innovation at the provincial level. Empirically, this model was tested using Canadian data by province on innovation flow over an 11 year time period, where innovation flow is defined in terms of international (U.S.) patents. It was found that skilled immigrants, who are proficient in either English or French, have a significant and positive impact on innovation flow in their home province. Further, in examining skilled immigrants by source region, it was found that skilled immigrants from developed countries have the greatest impact on their home provinces innovation flow. This is true of North American/European skilled immigrants for all skill-level categories including language proficiency, education, and immigrant class. For immigrants from developing countries, only highly educated Eastern Europeans and Low Income Asians classified as Independent Workers are both significant and positively related to their home provinces innovation flow.

The utilitarian theory contemplates rewarding the risks of inventors by providing them with a defined period of exclusivity to recoup their investment. For inventions requiring further investment, patents enable the creation of financial relationships between inventors and investors by providing patent exclusivity during the commercialization process. Innovation, contrasted from invention and conceptualized as commercialization, however, does not necessarily form the best means for delivering to the public inventions intended to improve health. Although patent policy conflates the economic growth and health improvement objectives of innovation, these goals do not always align. While the exercise of BRCA patents instantiates exclusive practicing of patents that failed to adequately deliver health technology, the patent system does not need significant change. Rather, to maintain the expectations of patent holders while balancing the needs of the public, current practices should continue with the encouragement of the creation of voluntary patent pools.

The utilitarian theory contemplates rewarding the risks of inventors by providing them with a defined period of exclusivity to recoup their investment. For inventions requiring further investment, patents enable the creation of financial relationships between inventors and investors by providing patent exclusivity during the commercialization process. Innovation, contrasted from invention and conceptualized as commercialization, however, does not necessarily form the best means for delivering to the public inventions intended to improve health. Although patent policy conflates the economic growth and health improvement objectives of innovation, these goals do not always align. While the exercise of BRCA patents instantiates exclusive practicing of patents that failed to adequately deliver health technology, the patent system does not need significant change. Rather, to maintain the expectations of patent holders while balancing the needs of the public, current practices should continue with the encouragement of the creation of voluntary patent pools.

University of Macau / Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences

The present Master thesis was written during an internship at Deutsche Post DHL Solutions&amp; Innovations, a subsidiary of Deutsche Post DHL. The main purpose was to make a patent portfolio benchmark for the previously identified business competitors of the DPDHL group. The research questions aimed to find out how relevant the patent portfolio analysis is for comparing competitors and whether or not the results can be matched with other types of rankings. The benchmark was made using the PatentSight software tool. PatentSight allows the patent portfolio analysis of individual companies as well as groups of companies (competitors). The software tool is based on a new approach to benchmark patent portfolios called Patent Asset Index. This approach uses several indicators to measure the patent portfolios strengths. The indicators are based on relatively widely used measures of patent analysis such as the number of citations that a patent has received. However, these measures are further adjusted by the PatentSight indicators in order to prevent false results due to the difference in patents’ ages, for instance. The results of the patent portfolio benchmark and their comparison with other rankings have confirmed previous research findings that the patent portfolio analysis is a useful tool which can remove uncertainties and provide new perspectives but cannot be used as single indicator of the competitors’ strength.