Complexities of scope and scale in claims: issues in vertical knowledge flow in cancer biotechnology

摘要

The article explores structural complexities of patent claims in cancer biotechnology. The scope (number of sub-technologies per claim) and scale (number of claims per patent) imply more complexity in the patent structure. By understanding complexities of cancer patent claims one can identify some barriers in the vertical technology flow from the upstream to downstream in the biopharmaceutical industry. Our descriptive statistics indicate that cancer biotechnology patents appear to contain a large number of concepts to represent variegated technologies for the treatment of cancer. It also shows that individual patents contain a large number of claims. This combination is expected to increase the complexity of the patent, increase uncertainty of the relevance of technology, and may hamper the flow of technology from the discovery source to the development recipient. Naturally, the cost of innovation may increase, and the value of the patent may decrease. Hence, a high level of scope and scale in cancer patent claims can be a barrier to technology transfer to the industry. Indeed, there are implications both for the firm, industry and society. From the policy perspective, institutional improvement may be needed to govern innovation structure more effectively.