Title: Intellectual property rights and innovation system: some lessons from Brazil

Authors: Tulio Chiarini; Ana Lucia Gonçalves da Silva

Addresses: INT, National Institute of Technology, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil ' UNICAMP, State University of Campinas, Campinas, Brazil

Abstract: Given the new institutional context of intellectual property rights, we contribute to the discussion of their role in technology transfer with an exploratory data analysis, drawing some lessons from Brazil. We start with a brief presentation of the major institutional changes from the 1990s, showing that TRIPs had different implications in different national innovation systems. We then present aggregated data from patent applications and from expenditures and receipts for the use of intellectual property in some countries with different innovation systems. We make evident that most new technological knowledge is produced in mature innovation systems. Importantly, these countries pay more than the laggard ones for the use of intellectual property, but they are also better compensated than their less advanced counterparts. Finally, we present the recent Brazilian case on intellectual property, which makes evident that the Brazilian Trademark Institute grants more patents to foreigners than to Brazilians in areas that are considered 'leading to the future' with high knowledge intensity.

Keywords: technology transfer; technological catch up; intellectual property rights; IPR; Brazil; TRIPs; national innovation systems; NIS; patent applications; patents.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIL.2016.079066

International Journal of Innovation and Learning, 2016 Vol.20 No.3, pp.265 - 288

Received: 04 Feb 2015
Accepted: 24 Mar 2015

Published online: 12 Sep 2016 *

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