The authors propose an ‘Algorithmic Links with Probabilities’ (ALP) approach to match Trademarks (TMs) data to economic data and enable these data to speak to each other. Specifically, they construct a NICE Class Level concordance that maps TM data into trade and industry categories forward and backward. This concordance allows researchers to analyze differences in TM usage across both economic and TM sectors. In this paper, the authors apply this ALP concordance for TMs to characterize patterns in TM applications across countries, industries, income levels and more. They also use the concordance to investigate some of the key determinants of international technology transfer by comparing bilateral TM applications and bilateral patent applications.
In this paper, the authors describe and explore a new algorithmic approach to constructing concordances between the International Patent Classification (IPC) system and industry classification systems that organize economic data. This ‘Algorithmic Links with Probabilities’ (ALP) approach incorporates text analysis software and keyword extraction programs and applies them to a comprehensive patent dataset. The authors conclude with a discussion on some of the possible applications of the concordance and provide a sample analysis that uses their preferred ALP concordance to analyze international patent flows based on trade patterns.
Today’s production processes are fragmented across countries and industries. Intangibles play an important role, but their measurement is elusive. This paper proposes a new empirical framework to measure factor incomes in production that spans industries and countries.
When copyrighted comic characters are also protected under trademark laws, intellectual property (IP) rights can be overlapping. Arguably, registering a trademark can increase transaction costs for cross-media uses of characters, or it can help advertise across multiple sales channels. In an application to book, movie and video game publishing industries, we thus ask how creative reuse (innovation in uses) is affected in situations of overlapping rights, and whether ‘fuzzy boundaries’ of right frameworks are in fact enhancing or decreasing content sales.
The paper describes: a) the coffee industry and its GVC structure; b) the role that intangible assets play in value creation from both the supply and demand perspective; and c) the current and potential role of intellectual property tools in creating and retaining value, as well as providing economic upgrade options.
This new edition continues to emphasize the use of data envelopment analysis (DEA) to create optimization-based benchmarks within hospitals, physician group practices, health maintenance organizations, nursing homes and other health care delivery organizations. Suitable for graduate students learning DEA applications in health care as well as for practicing administrators, it is divided into two sections covering methods and applications. Section I considers efficiency evaluations using DEA; returns to scale; weight restricted (multiplier) models; non-oriented or slack-based models, including in this edition two versions of non-controllable variable models and categorical variable models; longitudinal (panel) evaluations and the effectiveness dimension of performance evaluation. A new chapter then looks at new and advanced models of DEA, including super-efficiency, congestion DEA, network DEA, and dynamic network models. Mathematical formulations of various DEA models are placed in end-of-chapter appendices. Section II then looks at health care applications within particular settings, chapter-by-chapter, including hospitals, physician practices, nursing homes and health maintenance organizations (HMOs). Other chapters then explore home health care and home health agencies; dialysis centers, community mental health centers, community-based your services, organ procurement organizations, aging agencies and dental providers; DEA models to evaluate provider performance for specific treatments, including stroke, mechanical ventilation and perioperative services. A new chapter then examines international-country-based applications of DEA in health care in 16 different countries, along with OECD and multi-country studies. Most of the existing chapters in this section were expanded with recent applications. Included with the book is online access to a learning version of DEA Solver software, written by Professor Kaoru Tone, which can solve up to 50 DMUs for various DEA models listed in the User’s Guide at the end of the book.
This paper has two objectives. First, it describes a new database mapping migratory patterns of inventors, extracted from information included in patent applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty. It explains in detail the information contained in the database and discusses the usefulness and reliability of the underlying data. Second, the paper provides a descriptive overview of inventor migration patterns, based on the information contained in the newly constructed database.
This paper explores the phenomenon of “trademark squatting” – a situation in which someone other than the original brand owner obtains a trademark on a brand. The authors develop a model that shows how squatting results from market uncertainty that leads brand owners to rationally forgo registering trademarks, creating opportunities for squatting. They create an algorithm to identify squatters in the Chilean trademark register and show empirically that squatting is a persistent and systematic phenomenon. Using data on trademark oppositions, the authors find that squatting leads brand owners that have been exposed to squatting to “over-protect” their brands by registering disproportionately many trademarks and covering classes other than those directly related to their products and services. Trademark squatting, therefore, creates a strategic, albeit excessive, response by brand owners which inflates trademark filings.
This paper explores the motivations of firms that disclose research outcomes in a scientific format. Besides considering an internal firm dimension, the authors focus particularly on knowledge sourcing from academic institutions and the appropriability regime using a cost-benefit framework. The analysis provides evidence that the access to important scientific knowledge imposes the adoption of academic disclosure principles, whereas the mere existence of collaborative links with academic institutions is not a strong predictor. Furthermore, the results suggest that overall industry conditions are influential in shaping the cost-benefit rationale of firms with respect to scientific disclosure.
Companies use trademarks to protect their brands from outright imitation or competition by confusingly similar products. However, publication of trademark filings by the trademark office discloses information about a firm’s new product or service. This creates a trade-off between legal protection and disclosure of information. We analyze the trade-off through the lens of “submarine trademarks” in the U.S. – submarine trademarks are trademarks whose publication and hence disclosure to the public is strategically delayed. This is achieved through a particular international filing strategy that is often combined with the use of shell companies to further conceal the trademark filing. These submarine strategies allow companies to benefit from legal trademark protection while reducing the risk of inadvertent disclosure of information. We provide the first systematic evidence of submarine trademarks and explore both their determinants and their effectiveness in reducing the disclosure of information.
