Is It Worth All the Trouble? An Assessment of the Economic Value of Firm Patent Applications with Shared Intellectual Property Rights in the Biotechnology Industry

Abstract

Shared intellectual property rights are connected with complex legal issues and therefore organizations (e.g. firms) that apply for patents have a strong incentive to avoid co-ownership on their patents. In contrast to this the share of EPO firm patent applications with a joint ownership has increased in the biotechnology industry during the last two decades as it has been observed in other industries. From this the question has to be forced, whether joint patent applications are associated with a higher economic potential compared to the patents with no joint ownership so that firms are willing to cope with the legal issues that are associated with shared intellectual property rights on patents. We measure the economic value of a patent by the number of subsequent citations it has received and empirically address this question by the application of a nonparametric matching approach on patent level. We show that there exists a positive causal relationship between the decision of a firm to jointly apply for a patent and the future economic value that is associated with the regarded patent.