Fourteenth Annual Conference on Innovation Economics

Fourteenth Annual Conference on Innovation Economics on a purple background with a lightbulb.

Join the USPTO on Friday, August 20, for the Fourteenth Annual Conference on Innovation Economics, a one-day event organized with Professor Daniel F. Spulber, of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

The conference will bring together economics, business, and legal scholars to discuss the relationship between innovation, intellectual property, public policy, standards, and competition. It will include panel sessions focusing on empirical, legal, and theoretical contributions to:

  • antitrust and intellectual property
  • technology standards and standard setting organizations
  • incentives for R&D, invention, and innovation
  • intellectual property rights and public policy

Register today

Agenda

All times listed are in ET:

Agenda (subject to change)

Time

Topic

Speaker

11–11:15 a.m.Registration & log-on  
11:15–11:30 a.m.Welcome and introduction to the conference Daniel F. Spulber, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Nicholas Rada, USPTO 
11:30 a.m to 12:30 p.m.Paper Session #1: Patents, trademarks, and innovation

Chair: Nicholas Rada, USPTO 

"Patents and the pro se inventor lifecycle: Evidence from a randomized control trial"
Presenter: Nicholas Pairolero, USPTO

"Visibility of technology and cumulative innovation: Evidence from trade secrets laws"
Presenter: Bernhard Ganglmair, Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research and University of Mannheim

"One product, many patents: Imperfect intellectual property rights in the pharmaceutical industry" 
Presenter: Charu Gupta, University of Pennsylvania

"Vermeers and Rembrandts in the Same Attic: Complementarity between Copyright and Trademark in Firms’ Strategies" 
Presenter: Deepak Somaya, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

12:30–12:40 p.m.Break 
12:40–1:40 p.m.Paper Session #2: Public policy, patents, and innovation

Chair: Mark Schankerman, London School of Economics

"Patent publication and innovation"
Presenter: Deepak Hegde, New York University

"Truly standard-essential patents? A semantics-based analysis"
Presenter: Dietmar Harhoff, Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition

"Dynamic Mergers Effects on R&D Investments and Drug Development across Research Phases in the Pharmaceutical Industry" 
Presenter: Zhili Tian, Coastal Carolina University

"Venture Capitalists' Access to Finance and Its Impact on Startups" 
Presenter: Michael Ewens, California Institute of Technology 

1:40–1:50 p.m.Break 
1:50–2:50 p.m.Panel #3: Competition and innovation

Moderator: Daniel F. Spulber, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Panelists:

  • Adam Mossoff, Scalia School of Law, George Mason University
  • Christian Catalini, Co-creator Diem Association and Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Jeffrey Prince, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University
  • William Kovacic, The George Washington University Law School
2:50–3 p.m.Closing remarksDaniel F. Spulber, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Additional information

For more information, visit the registration page or contact Hollis Robinson in the USPTO’s Global Intellectual Property Academy.

This virtual program has been organized by the USPTO’s Office of the Chief Economist (OCE), a unit of the USPTO’s Office of Policy and International Affairs (OPIA), and Daniel F. Spulber, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. OPIA advises the administration and other federal government departments and agencies on domestic and international intellectual property (IP) legal and policy issues. It also provides technical assistance and training on IP-related matters to U.S. stakeholders and both U.S. and foreign government officials.

For more information on past innovation economics conferences visit OCE’s conferences page.