Overall Assessment and Conclusion

• Author: Rémi Lallement
• Profession: Charge of Mission (policy analyst), France Stratégie, France
• Pages: 113-135

8

Overall Assessment and Conclusion

In terms of innovation, what are the global consequences of the

developments analyzed in the last two chapters? To what extent does

the system work properly? To make an assessment, we should go

beyond the aforementioned works (Chapter 2) that analyzed the

effectiveness of intellectual property rights in relation to innovation

from a microeconomic perspective. We still need to consider the

question of the consequences on innovation processes on the economy

and society as a whole. The relevant analyses usually raise two key

issues. On one hand, how and to what extent does intellectual property

affect innovation and economic growth? On the other hand, what is

the impact of patents as mediums for the dissemination of knowledge

and, more generally, to what extent does intellectual property

represent a key factor for the circulation of knowledge and technology

transfer? To leave generalities aside and carry out a more precise

analysis, it is in many respects necessary to tackle these issues from a

sectorial perspective. This helps us see that, although intellectual

property rights affect innovation practices, these practices in turn have

an effect on these rights. These mutual interactions lead us to reason

in systemic terms, considering intellectual property rights as a

component of innovation systems. Finally, this attempt to provide an

overall view encourages us to consider, in the name of innovation, if

abolishing intellectual property rights is a pressing need, if we should

maintain the current system unchanged, or if it is preferable to keep

trying to reform it.

Intellectual Property and Innovation Protection: New Practices and New Policy Issues,

First Edition. Rémi Lallement.

© ISTE Ltd 2017. Published by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

114 Intellectual Property and Innovation Protection

8.1. A possible lever for the countries’ economic growth

through the incentive to innovate

The aforementioned empirical works show that intellectual

property rights and patents in particular generally have a positive

effect on the holders’ economic performances. This remark on a

microeconomic level, however, does not necessarily apply to a

broader context, whether meso- or macroeconomic. What about the

consequences of patents on investments in innovation and as a lever

for the promotion of economic growth, at the level of sectors or

countries?

8.1.1. Some historical lessons

To make an assessment, it is first useful to deal with this topic from

the perspective of economic history by going back to the first

industrial revolution or considering more recent periods. Some works

carried out on this topic allow us to consider the counterfactual issue:

what would happen to innovation performances if the patent system

did not exist?

Moser [MOS 05] provides a partial answer to this question by

studying the inventions associated with the two universal expositions

held in London in 1851 and in Philadelphia in 1876. Thus, she

analyzes the development of patents in a certain number of countries

according to whether they could count or not on patent laws at the

time. She shows that in countries without patent laws inventors

focused their efforts on fields where other forms of protection were

available, especially where the protection provided by trade secrets

was effective. This was the case for Switzerland, for example, which

invested in the textile industry, the food industry and watchmaking at

the time. In the United States, where the protection provided by

patents was actually insured and relatively accessible in terms of

costs, innovation focused on mechanical engineering. The

Netherlands, which abolished their patent laws in 1869, later

substantially increased their innovations in the food industry. Overall,

this study suggests that these different forms of protection – among

which patents – have had a significant effect on the sectorial direction

of the innovation activity but not on its general volume.