智慧財產權維護與經濟效率

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS PROTECTION AND ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY

文獻上討論智慧財產權（IPR）保護政策的相關文章，大都把焦點放在政府政策對廠商創新研發活動的相關影響上面。為了維護自己辛勤獲得的智慧財產以及伴隨之獨占利潤，除了藉助公權力的屏蔽以外，亦常見廠商以各種方式努力降低被仿造的風險。然而，這一部份一直為文獻所忽略。本文以獨占性競爭架構探討存在「私人防範」（private precaution）時政府的最適智慧財產權保護整測。比較嚴格的IPR政策是否必然激勵出比較多的創新？此一典型提問，在考慮進私人防範要素後，答案變成不一定。公私防護資源之間複雜的互動關係是重要的決定因素。另外，本文特別強調，加強IPR保護有促進新式樣產品的出現，這種「種類效果」造成加強IPR保護同時是一項對消費者有益的政策。這和傳統文獻認為「比較嚴格的智慧財產權保護會傷害消費者」的論點是不同的。

Most of the research in the literature on IPR and R&D activities does not take into account firms’ self-protection efforts. To protect their IPR and the accompanied monopoly profits, firms also take actions to reduce the probability of patented products being imitated or pirated. This paper incorporates private precaution factors into a monopolistic competition model to analyze the effects of government IPR policies. We find that a more stringent government IPR policy encourages more R&D activities except in the case when private and governmental IPR protection activities are highly complementary. In addition, we find that there is a “variety effect” pertaining to a more stringent IPR protection policy. Contrary to the result of most of the literature, we find that a more stringent IPR policy is beneficial to consumers.