Compulsory licensing, price controls, and access to patented foreign products

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bond, Eric W.; Saggi, Kamal
• 署名单位: Vanderbilt University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2014.04.001
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 217-228
• 关键词: Patented products; Compulsory licensing; Voluntary licensing; Price controls; QUALITY; welfare

摘要

We analyze how a price control and the threat of compulsory licensing (CL) affect consumer access in a developing country (South) to a patented foreign product. In the model, the Southern government sets the level of the price control on a Northern patent-holder who chooses between entry and voluntary licensing (VL). While entry incurs a higher fixed cost, licensed production is of lower quality. If the patent-holder does not work its patent locally, the South is free to use CL The threat of CL ensures that consumers have access to (a lower quality version of) the patented good when the patent-holder chooses not to work its patent locally; improves the terms at which VL occurs; can cause the patent-holder to switch from VL to entry; and can delay consumer access when CL replaces VL or entry. We also show that a price control and CL are mutually reinforcing instruments. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.