Sequential Innovation and Intellectual Property. A Comparison of Empirical and Experimental Findings

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject Economics - Innovation economics, grade: 1,3, University of Constance, language: English, abstract: Patents seem to hinder sequential innovation in the software sector, and that this type of sequential industry. For biopharmaceuticals empirical results do not suggest a clear effect of patents on sequential innovation. Comparing these two industries, it will be shown that the industry characteristics of the software branch fit more accurate the assumptions of the experimental approach of Brüggemann et al. (2016) than does the biopharmaceutical branch, which overall seems to have a special position in the discussion about patents spurring innovation or not.