This dissertation consists of introduction chapter and five empirical studies on European intellectual property rights institutions. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 are micro-level studies and the perspective shifts to macro-level in Chapters 5 and 6. Chapters 2, 3, 5 and 6 analyze two-tiered patent systems and Chapter 4 focuses on design rights. Chapter 2 analyzes the choice between patent and utility model protection among German firms. The results indicate that larger firms are more likely to use both protection methods and that a short life cycle of products and services is associated with an increased likelihood to use utility models.
Chapter 3 analyzes the role of utility models in patent filing strategies. It is documented that most European utility models are used to protect inventions only nationally. The study provides suggestive evidence that utility models play also a role in international patent filings. The results indicate that patent filings at European Patent Office (EPO) with national utility model priority filings are of lower quality than those with patent priorities. Chapter 4 analyzes the role of design rights in competition and innovation in the Finnish sauna heater industry. We document events, which provided the industry participants with learning opportunities about the scope of design rights. Evidence suggests that the scope of design rights evolved dynamically as more designs were introduced and that uncertain design rights may have fostered entrepreneurial optimism. Chapter 5 analyzes the effect on aggregate patenting activity when a country shifts from a two-tiered patent system to a single-tiered patent system. Using synthetic control method it is found that the abolition of the Dutch short-term patent system did not cause a constant decrease in the level of patenting. Chapter 6 analyzes the sorting induced by two-tiered patent systems in European countries. Second tier patents are chosen for more marginal inventions and more often by individual applicants in comparison to regular patents. The ratio of second tier patents to regular patents is highest in technology fields in which the average quality of inventions protected with regular patents is lowest. The evidence regarding quality differences between regular patents in single-tiered and two-tiered patent systems is ambiguous. Although there still exists no evidence that two-tiered patent systems boost innovation activity in advanced economies, this thesis has demonstrated that a two-tiered patent system may serve as a screening instrument. The main implication is that future patent research should take into account second tier patents or, at least, be explicit whether they are included in patent statistics or not.