This manual provides guiding principles for the use of patent data in the context of S&T measurement, and recommendations for the compilation and interpretation of patent indicators in this context.

This volume assembles papers commissioned by the National Research Council's Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy (STEP) to inform judgments about the significant institutional and policy changes in the patent system made over the past two decades. The chapters fall into three areas. The first four chapters consider the determinants and effects of changes in patent "quality." Quality refers to whether patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) meet the statutory standards of patentability, including novelty, nonobviousness, and utility. The fifth and sixth chapters consider the growth in patent litigation, which may itself be a function of changes in the quality of contested patents. The final three chapters explore controversies associated with the extension of patents into new domains of technology, including biomedicine, software, and business methods.

Empirical and theoretical evidence on the German service sector is inversely related to its growing overall importance for the entire economy. This monograph offers a comprehensive theory-based econometric treatment of three important and severely understudied issues related to services: innovative activity, the effects of innovation on the demand for labour, and the performance of newly founded firms. In addition, the book contains detailed descriptive statistics on innovative activity, skill mix as well as on growth and current economic importance. It offers researchers, policy makers, and practitioners a unique opportunity to gain knowledge on the new German service economy.

With the introduction of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and the new European Patent with Unitary Effect, the European patent litigation system is undergoing a set of fundamental reforms. This timely book assesses the current state of European patent litigation by analysing recently published data on Europe's four major patent jurisdictions - the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands - and also looks ahead to examine what the impact of the UPC is likely to be on Europe's patent litigation system in the near future.

The patent system is criticized today by some practitioners and economists. In fact, there is a partial disconnection between patent demographics and productivity gains, but also the development of actors who do not innovate and who develop business models that their detractors equate with a capture of annuities or a dangerous commodification of patents. This book provides a less Manichaean view of the position of patents in the system of contemporary innovation. It first recalls that these criticisms are not new, before arguing that if these criticisms have been revived, it is because of a partial shift from an integrated innovation system to a much more fragmented and open system. This shift accompanied the promotion of a more competitive economy. The authors show that this movement is coherent with a more intensive use of patents, but also one that is more focused on their signal function than on their function of direct monetary incentive to innovation.