Market Power and Patent Strategies: Evidence from Renaissance Venice
利用1474年威尼斯共和国首个正规专利制度的引入，研究发现行会限制进入和价格竞争的法规越严格，发明人申请专利的倾向越低，表明市场力量对专利活动的影响具有历史持续性。
This paper exploits the introduction of the first regularized patent system, which appeared in the Venetian Republic in 1474, to examine the factors shaping inventors’ propensity to use a new form of intellectual property. We combine detailed information on craft guilds and patents in Renaissance Venice and show a negative association between patenting activity and guild statutory norms that strongly restricted entry and price competition. Our analysis shows that the heterogeneity in patenting activity documented by the industrial organization literature is not a special feature of modern technologies, but is rather a persistent phenomenon affected by market power.