Invention | EPFL Graph Search

An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an idea is unique enough either as a stand alone invention or as a significant improvement over the work of others, it can be patented. A patent, if granted, gives the inventor a proprietary interest in the patent over a specific period of time, which can be licensed for financial gain. An inventor creates or discovers an invention. The word inventor comes from the Latin verb invenire, invent-, to find. Although inventing is closely associated with science and engineering, inventors are not necessarily engineers or scientists. Due to advances in artificial intelligence, the term "inventor" no longer exclusively applies to an occupation (see human computers). Some inventions can be patented. The system of patents was established to encourage inven

Radiography appliance comprising a movable arm

Thomas Gabella

The invention relates to a radiography appliance comprising a column and a movable arm mounted such that it slides along the column and rotates about an axis oriented perpendicularly to the main direction of the column, one end of the arm comprising a detector and the other end a radiation source. The appliance is characterised in that it comprises means for locking the arm against rotation and/or against translation.

2016

Essays on the Economics of Innovation: Incentives, Diffusion, and Disparity

Ling Zhou

As an important policy instrument for guiding innovation, the patent system involves a long-standing tension between creating economic rewards for the original innovators and stifling subsequent R&D activities. The availability of new data allows us to provide unique sights into understanding how effective patents are in providing incentives for innovation and how firms' disclosure of proprietary assets affects the dissemination of knowledge. On the other hand, innovation per se is the fruit of human intellect. The knowledge workforce is, therefore, a crucial component of a country's innovative capacity. The persistent gap in the participation in innovative activities between men and women reflects a misallocation of talented human capital and leaves opportunities for policy implementation. This dissertation ties the questions mentioned above and presents novel evidence on the incentives, diffusion, and disparity in innovative activities. The first essay (chapter 2), in collaboration with Gaétan de Rassenfosse, provides empirical evidence on the real effect of patent expiration on monopoly prices and explores how this effect varies with product market competition. We compile a novel dataset that links patents to consumer products and retail prices for these products from Amazon.com. We find that patent expiration leads to a 7--8 percent drop in product prices. This effect is heterogeneous by patent type and importance and starts one year in advance. We also find a more substantial decline in prices in product markets where competition is intense, consistent with evidence from the pharmaceutical industry. We argue that incumbent innovators lower prices preemptively in the face of generic competition. The second essay (chapter 3), in collaboration with Gaétan de Rassenfosse, studies how firms' disclosure of innovative assets affects the diffusion of inventions. We focus the empirical setting on firms' provision of constructive notice through virtual patent marking (VPM) and exploit patent-level variation in the marking dates. With data collected on marked patents from the VPM web documents of 16 firms, we find an overall effect of VPM is small. However, conditional firms' strong reliance on patents as an appropriability regime, our findings suggest that while VPM induces firms to build subsequent internal inventions on the ones that are commercially valuable, it fends off diffusion to external firms and reduces similarity between inventions. Last but not least, in the third essay (chapter 4), collaborated with Mary Kaltenberg, we explore the role of family policies in closing the innovation gender gap. By matching inventor data to web-scraped inventor age information, we exploit the staggered passage of maternity leave policies across the U.S. and evaluate its impact on the retention and productivity of female inventors. Our findings suggest that maternity leave policy supports women of reproductive ages stay longer in patenting but has little impact on their productivity.

EPFL2021

Innovation dynamics in the medical device sector

Monica Coffano

This thesis aims to provide new insights into the evolution of the medical device sector (MedTech). After the analysis of the history of the sector, I examine the key points that in the past 60 years, have led the industry to grow so impressively, and I proceed to an analysis of the actual situation. The scope of the thesis is to understand if what has stimulated the success of the sector at the beginning is still important, and if the introduction of new elements has positively changed the evolution of the sector. The thesis is composed of three works. The first work (chapter 2) is developed in collaboration with Dominique Foray and Michele Pezzoni. I analyze how the network structure of inventors in the Swiss regions can influence regional innovation performance. I aim to contribute to the existing literature related to the debate on the importance of inventors' collocation for the creation of innovation. I claim that an increased degree centrality of MedTech inventors in the regional technological community is positively associated with the number of MedTech patent applications in the focal region. Moreover, the presence of MedTech inventors in the principal component of the regional technological community is positively associated with the number of MedTech patent applications in the region. However, local connections are not enough to promote innovation. In fact, the results show that intense cross-regional linkages of MedTech inventors increase the number of MedTech patent applications in the region. Thus, it is not only important that an inventor be well connected within her region, but also that she be exposed to external knowledge in order to increase her possibility of achieving high performance in MedTech within that region. Finally, I want also to understand how MedTech is open to other technological domains. I find that the average degree centrality and cross-regional linkages of academic inventors and inventors specialized in technologies complementary to MedTech affect regional innovation outcomes. The second work (chapter 3) is developed in collaboration with Dominique Foray. I aim to study the impact of external technologies on the MedTech sector. I start analyzing the literature of knowledge spillovers, and I do a comprehensive review of the extant measures of knowledge spillovers. I argue that the classical measures based on patent backward citations should be carefully interpreted. The reason as to why this type of index needs a prudent interpretation is linked to the characteristics of different technologies in terms of the speed at which other sectors are capable of understanding, absorbing and using them. Therefore, I propose a new formulation of the classical measure of backward citations. The third work (chapter 4) is developed in collaboration with Fabiana Visentin. I aim to understand the effects of the MedTech regulation that entered into force in Europe in 1993. I argue that the regulation has two effects. The first effect is related to the level of radicalness in the innovation. I claim that after the introduction of the regulation, and consequently with the tightening of the requirements to fulfill, firms became more careful and less motivated to propose radical innovations. At the same time, standardization of the requirements over the European countries gives to firms the possibility of widening their market.

EPFL2016