Giving up patent rights can accelerate innovation, study finds
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A recent study published in Research Policy, the leading innovation journal, examines the effects of patent pledges on innovation. Patent pledges are voluntary commitments made by patent holders to limit the enforcement of their patents. The study, conducted by Prof. Gaétan de Rassenfosse from EPFL, Switzerland, and Prof. Alfons Palangkaraya from Swinburne University of Technology, Australia, estimates the effect of these pledges on follow-on inventions.
« The study is unique in its approach to identifying individual patents pledged across a large number of pledges. This allows for a more fine-grained understanding of the conditions under which pledges are more or less conducive to follow-on inventions, » says Gaétan de Rassenfosse, one of the authors of the study.
The study finds that patent pledges have the potential to accelerate innovation by increasing the diffusion of inventions. By voluntarily foregoing exclusion rights on their inventions, patent owners can encourage greater use and development of their technology. This can lead to more follow-on inventions and a more dynamic innovation ecosystem.
The paper is available in open access at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2023.104745 thanks to generous funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation.