Patent Policy, Innovation and Imitation Costs, and Comparative Advantage

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K03672
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Economic policy
• Research Institution: Waseda University
• Principal Investigator: ICHIDA TOSHIHIRO 早稲田大学, 商学学術院, 准教授 (80398932)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: 特許政策 / イノベーション費用 / 模倣費用 / 多次元異質性モデル / 国際貿易

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Research and development activities can be divided into two types: completely new original innovation and somewhat imitated applied research. The cost to conduct these two activities can vary in two dimensional space depending on ideas or industries. Some ideas can be very costly in creating the original innovation, but its imitation can be cheap. Others may be cheaply created but expensive to imitate. In this research, I analyzed how various R&D policies can affect the incentives of the innovators and imitators who are distributed heterogeneously in two dimensional space. In so doing, I limit the case to the situation where the patent length is fixed while costs to innovate and imitate vary widely in two dimension space. The government policy can affect the cost distribution and the objective of the research is to relate this policy differences to comparative advantage in determining trade pattern.

Free Research Field

国際貿易と産業組織の理論

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の学術的な特色としては、まったく新しいイノベーション費用と既存研究を拡張した模倣費用という2種類の開発費用が、２次元に分布している場合に、さまざまな特許政策によって、産業やアイディアの異質性にどのように影響を与えるかを示し、２次元の費用の異質性が国の産業の比較優位を生み出す方向性を初めて理論的に分析するところにある。それと同時に、我が国の特許政策の在り方を検討するうえでも重要な役割を果たすことが期待される。