It is crucial that patent offices grant protection only to those inventions that are novel and non-obvious. In 2004, the European Patent Office (EPO) made the unique move to systematically extend its prior art database by including documents shared among members of standard-setting...

Research and development (R&D) in the field of nanomaterials is expected to be a major driver of innovation and economic growth. Consequently, it is of great interest to understand which factors facilitate the creation of new technological knowledge. The existing literature has typically...

The aim of this paper is to investigate the causal effect of a recent attempt undertaken by the EPO to improve the quality of the patent granting process. To do so we examine a policy change that aimed at including the information revealed during the standardisation-setting process into the...

Based on an established theoretical framework of the drivers of inventive performance, the so-called KSAO (Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Other) factors, this paper seeks to explain empirically the performance of inventors throughout their careers. We combine survey information spanning the...

This paper tests a number of hypotheses on the use and effectiveness of patents and trade secrets designed to protect innovation. While previous studies have often considered patents and trade secrets as substitutes for one another, we investigate the complementary role of the two protection...

Taking into account the relevance of Biotechnology in the World industry and economic growth, this essay is focused on the analysis of the use of biotech patent information for determining technological trends and generating innovation indicators, because patents are an important technological...

The Italian and European regulatory framework for patents would benefit from further improvements in order to foster dynamic competition between Italian firms. At the national level the exclusive allocation of the right to patent inventions to universities, rather than to researchers, would...

The present paper extends the literature investigating key drivers leading certain patents to exert a stronger influence on the subsequent technological developments (inventions) than other ones. We investigated six key determinants, as (i) the use of scientific knowledge, (ii) the breadth of...

This paper examines the idea that the USA has outshined Europe in the race for new medicines as a result of a flight of business R&D expenditure to the USA. It adopts a methodology that accounts for R&D price inflation, considers the role of both ‘performed' R&D and ‘extra-mural' R&D, and...

3D printing is a technology that has the potential to revolutionise manufacturing as we know it. While 3D printing is becoming mainstream, few consumers of printing services have the capacity to undertake their own printing. Around the technology, a service industry is burgeoning, as consumers...