Intellectual property and fourth industrial revolution technologies: how the patent system is shaping the future in the data-driven economy

We contribute to the economic literature by seeking to answer two research questions: (1) What is the effect of legal breath (and other indicators) on the quality of innovations in the fourth industrial revolution, (2) How does the IP culture (utilitarism vs. natural law) explain these differences? We find that the legal breadth of a patent positively affects the quality of innovations in the fourth industrial revolution. Interestingly, this impact of legal breadth may be driven by historical path dependencies and ways in which the two philosophical schools (utilitarism vs. natural law) have shaped the patent system in Anglo-Saxon countries versus continental Europe.