TY  - JOUR
AU  - Serrano,Carlos J.
TI  - Estimating the Gains from Trade in the Market for Innovation: Evidence from the Transfer of Patents
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 17304
PY  - 2011
Y2  - August 2011
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17304
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17304.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Carlos J. Serrano
Rotman School of Management
University of Toronto
105 St. George Street
Toronto,  ON M5S 3E6
CANADA
Tel: 416/946-3404
E-Mail: carlos.serrano@utoronto.ca
AB  - The "market for innovation" — the sale and licensing of patents — is an often discussed source of incentives to invest in R&D. This article presents and estimates a model of the transfer and renewal of patents that, under some assumptions, allows us to quantify the gains resulting from the transfer of patents in the market for innovation. The gains from trade measure the benefits of reallocating the ownership of a patent from the original inventor to a new owner for whom the patent has a higher value. In addition, we study the effect that lowering the costs of technology transfer has on the proportion of patents traded and the gains from trade. 
ER  -