Patenting in the Pharmaceutical Industry

Abstract

The chapter investigates the returns to R&D expenditures on patenting in the pharma‐ ceutical industry, using a panel data of 32 countries. Due to the unique situation in the industry that come from the patent being the new drug and additional clinical trials which must be conducted for safety and efficacy, the pharmaceutical industry is analyzed alone. The results indicated that for pharmaceutical patent applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the European Patent Office (EPO) and the triadic family consisting of USPTO, EPO and the Japan Patent Office (JPO), pharmaceuti‐ cal R&D expenditures had no impact coming from European countries. However, for the six non-European countries in the dataset (Australia, South Korea, Mexico, Romania, Singapore and Taiwan), the R&D always had statistically significant effects on all three patent applications in the industry. The results were more pronounced when the United States and Japan were also included. While China, Brazil and India were excluded due to missing pharmaceutical R&D data, it is hypothesized that the effect of these countries would have made the results stronger. Meanwhile, the main pull factor that attracts long- haul travel by international tourists to Penang was its ‘culture and history’. Additionally, there were partly direct and significant relationships between socio-demographic, trip characteristics and travel motivation (push factors and pull factors). Overall, this study identified the long-haul travel motivations by international tourists to Penang based on socio-demographic, trip characteristics and travel motivation and has indirectly helped in understanding the long-haul travel market particularly for Penang and Southeast Asia. This research also suggested for an effective marketing and promotion strategy in pro- viding useful information that is the key to attract international tourists to travel long distances. Keywords: