INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND APPROPRIABILITY OF INNOVATION CAPITAL: EVIDENCE FROM POLISH MANUFACTURING FIRMS

This paper tries to find how firms use IPRs in the form of patents to protect innovation capital and find determinants of their effectiveness. The research is based on a large sample of 2960 Polish manufacturing firms that were engaged in developing and/or implementing a product or process innovation in the years 2010–2012. Besides descriptive statistics which show firms’ attitudes toward the effectiveness of patents and their determinants, I apply the knowledge production function to find a link between patent propensity, R&D and innovation performance. Descriptive analyses show that Polish manufacturing firms rarely use patents as the appropriability mechanism, which results in the low level of their perceived effectiveness. It also turns out that the perceived effectiveness of a patent depends on a firm’s size, the innovation type and technological opportunities. In turn, the results of the knowledge production function estimation allow me to conclude that an increase in patent propensity affects the firm’s innovation performance positively.