Laurie Ciaramella, Ph.D.
Affiliated Research Fellow
Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research
Assistant Professor, Télécom Paris – Institut Polytechnique de Paris
laurie.ciaramella(at)ip.mpg.de
Personal Website
Areas of Interest
Innovation, Intellectual Property, Markets for Technology, Financing of Innovation, Innovation Policy, Taxation, Firm Strategy
Academic Résumé
Since 01/2019
Assistant Professor at Télécom Paris – Institut Polytechnique de Paris
Affiliated Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition (Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research)
12/2017 - 12/2018
Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition (Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research)
05 - 06/2017
Research Visit, Searle Center on Law, Regulation and Economic Growth, Northwestern University, Chicago
12/2016 & 03 - 04/2017
Research Visit, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, College of Management, Switzerland
10/2014 - 12/2017
Doctoral Candidate and Research Fellow at MINES ParisTech (Centre for Industrial Economics, CERNA). Doctoral Thesis: “Trade and Relocation of Intellectual Property: Essays on the Markets for Patents.” Jury Members: Stuart Graham (Georgia Institute of Technology), Neus Palomeras (Universidad Carlos III), Carlos J. Serrano (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Yann Ménière (Mines ParisTech PSL), Catalina Martinez (CSIC-IPP)
2012 - 2014
Master of Science in Economics of Markets and Organizations, Toulouse School of Economics
2008 - 2011
Bachelor of Science in Economics, Université Paris Dauphine
Honours, Scholarships, Academic Prizes
2018
Best Dissertation Award Finalist, Technology and Innovation Management, Academy of Management
More
2017
Best PhD Paper (Bent Dalum) Award for the Most Promising and Innovative Research Project, DRUID 17 Academy
2017
Presentation at the Rising Star Session, EARIE
Publications
Articles in Refereed Journals
(2023). Taxation and the Transfer of Patents: Evidence from Europe, European Economic Review 151. DOI
- I study how taxes affect firms’ incentives to shift the location of intangible assets. Using firm-level data on patent reassignments, I exploit variations in statutory tax rates and the introduction of “patent box” policies as shocks modifying incentives to transfer patents across countries. The results suggest a large impact of taxes on asset shifting between affiliates, increasing with expected patent income, and driven by very large firms. Patent boxes are persistently associated with more incoming and less outgoing patent relocations between affiliates. These findings suggest that taxes provide firms with incentives to shift income via patent relocation, and advocate for considering patent transfer strategies in tax policy.
- Also published as Working Paper
(2018). Distance and the Timing of Licensing, Academy of Management Proceedings, 2018 (1). DOI
- We study the effect of geographical distance between the contracting parties on the timing of the licensing deal. Using insights from the transaction costs theory, we argue that geographical distance increases the search, information and contracting costs. We investigate this question using a novel dataset of licensing deals in France, containing geo-localization of parties together with detailed demographic and patent information. To identity the effect of geographical distance as a market friction, we control for the confounding determinants of the timing of the transaction. Because of the possibility that firms with similar interests may gather in business clusters, we argue that it is also important to control for the market and technology characteristics of the parties. We find that geographic distance delays the transaction, and that this effect is strong for SMEs. We also find market proximity to be a significant delayer of the licensing transaction. Our findings provide evidence for the existence of a local characteristic to markets for technology, which are usually seen as global.
(2017). Tracking Patent Transfers in Different European Countries: Methods and a First Application to Medical Technologies, Scientometrics, 112 (2), 817-850. DOI
- Drawing on more than half a million granted patents in all technological sectors filed at EPO between 1998 and 2012 we gather information on 300,000 inscriptions affecting changes in their ownership at the EPO and top national registers (France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain). After grouping parallel legal events in different European validation countries, we find that more than 30% of EPO patents in all fields change ownership at least once. For the field of medical technologies, we exploit additional information on corporate structures to further distinguish between “intragroup” and “bare” changes of ownership thanks. Our results indicate that more than two-thirds of the transfers happen “intragroup”, that is between related corporate entities. Using regressions analyses, we finally explore and discuss relations between the occurrence and types of these transfers of patent and proxies for patent quality.
Contributions to Collected Editions
(2022). Sources of Knowledge Flow between Developed and Developing Countries, in: Antony Taubman, Jayashree Watal (
Further Publications, Press Articles, Interviews
(2016). The Market for European Patents. Report to the French Patent Office. Courbevoie: L'Institut National de la Propriété Industrielle (INPI).
Discussion Papers
(2019). Patent Transfers and Patent Citations, HAL archives ouvertes, No. hal-02307096.
(2019). The Markets for Standard Essential Patents.
(2019). Geography and the Markets for Technology.
(2019). Taxation and the Transfer of Patents.
(2017). Patent Boxes and the Relocation of Intellectual Property. DOI
- Firms can make use of the discretionary aspect of the location of patent ownership to avoid taxation and maximise their profits. This paper investigates patent transfers with regard to patent box regimes, and study how firms' incentives to relocate patents vary with the heterogeneity of the features of such regimes. Using a comprehensive dataset on international patent transfers, I find that patent box countries significantly attract more patent relocations, and that incoming flows increase in the tax rebate. The fiscal incentives are stronger in countries with a high R&D level, suggesting multiple dimensions in firms' decisions of patent relocation. This is all the more true for more valuable patents. I distinguish between intra-group relocation and patent trade. The results indicate that policy makers could tweak the designs of patent box regimes and the stringency of the rules governing patent transfers to deter relocation driven solely by fiscal optimization motives. Finally, I propose a novel instrument to address the potential endogeneity of R&D expenditures.
Conferences and Seminars
25.11.2021
Financing Innovative Companies
Alumni Workshop, Télécom Paris
Location: Paris, France
08.09.2021
Doctoral Workshop on Markets for Technology
EPIP Conference
Location: Madrid, Spain
01.07.2021
Intellectual Property Rights as Loan Collateral
Workshop on Digital and Innovation Economics
Location: Trouville, France
30.06.2021
Markets for Technology and for Inventions: An Economic Analysis
Télécom Paris – Research Days
Location: Palaiseau, France
06.05.2021
Taxation and the Transfer of Patents: Evidence from European Patent Boxes
LEI & BRICK Seminar, University of Torino – Collegio Carlo Alberto
Location: Torino, Italy
17.12.2020
RISE3 Workshop
Discussant
Location: online (Munich)
11.12.2020
Joint PhD Workshop on Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Competition
Discussant
Location: online (Mannheim)
13.09.2019
Patent Transfers and Patent Citations
14th Annual Conference of the EPIP Association
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
10.08.2019
Organization of Academy of Management
TIM Doctoral Workshop, Academy of Management Conference
Location: Boston, Massachusetts, US
26.06.2019
Evidence-based Research on the Markets for Patents
EIPIN IS Interdisciplinary Research Week, CEIPI
Location: Strasbourg, France
17.05.2019
Geography and the Markets for Technology
The 8th ZEW-MaCCI Conference on the Economics of Innovation and Patenting, ZEW
Location: Mannheim
04.04.2019
Taxation and the Markets for Technology
Workshop on Platforms, E-commerce and Digital Economics, CREST
Location: Palaiseau, France
04.12.2018
Taxation and the Transfer of Patents
IO and Trade Seminar, LMU Munich
Location: Munich
23.10.2018
Taxation and the Transfer of Patents
GRETHA
Location: Bordeaux, France
06.09.2018
Distance and the Timing of Licensing
13th Annual Conference of the EPIP Association, ESMT Berlin
Location: Berlin
14.08.2018
Distance and the Timing of Licensing
AOM 2018 Conference, Technology and Innovation Management
Location: Chicago, Illinois, US
12.08.2018
Essays on the Markets for Patents
AOM 2018 Conference, Technology and Innovation Management, Best Dissertations Session
Location: Chicago, Illinois, US
13.06.2018
Distance and the Timing of Licensing
DRUID 18 Conference, Copenhagen Business School (CBS)
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
14.05.2018
Distance and the Timing of Licensing
67th Conference of the French Economic Association (AFSE), Paris School of Economics (PSE)
Location: Paris, France
23.04.2018
Patent Boxes and the Relocation of Intellectual Property
ZEW Public Finance Conference: The Future of Fiscal Coordination in Europe
Location: Mannheim
13.04.2018
Patent Boxes and the Relocation of Intellectual Property
5th International Meeting in Law and Economics, Institut d'Etudes Avancées de Paris
Location: Paris, France
07.04.2018
The Markets for Standard Essential Patents
10th Paris Conference on Digital Economics, Télécom MINES ParisTech
Location: Paris, France
04.04.2018
Distance and the Timing of Licensing
3rd Abbé Grégoire Innovation Days, Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers
Location: Paris, France
05.03.2018
Patent Boxes and the Relocation of Intellectual Property
Workshop of the OECD Expert Network on R&D Tax Incentive Design and Indicators, European Commission
Location: Brussels, Belgium
02.02.2018
Distance and the Timing of Licensing
4th Geography of Innovation Conference, University of Barcelona,
Location: Barcelona, Spain
11.01.2018
The Markets for Standard Essential Patents
11th Digital Economics Conference, Toulouse School of Economics
Location: Toulouse, France
05.09.2017
Patent Boxes and the Relocation of Intellectual Property
12th Annual Conference of the EPIP Association, Université de Bordeaux
Location: Bordeaux, France
31.08.2017
Patent Boxes and the Relocation of Intellectual Property
44th EARIE Conference, Maastricht University
Location: Maastricht, The Netherlands
25.07.2017
Patent Boxes and the Relocation of Intellectual Property
Summer School on Empirical Research in Taxation and R&D, Graduate School of Economic and Social Sciences
Location: Mannheim
23.06.2017
Patent Boxes and the Relocation of Intellectual Property
10th Searle Center/USPTO Conference on Innovation Economics, Northwestern University
Location: Chicago, Illinois, US
14.06.2017
Patent Boxes and the Relocation of Intellectual Property
DRUID 17 Conference, NYU Stern School of Business
Location: New York City, NY, US
08.06.2017
Invited discussant
8th Annual Conference on Internet Commerce and Innovation, Northwestern University
Location: Chicago, Illinois, US
05.05.2017
Invited discussant
5th Annual Searle Center Roundtable on Patents and Technology Standards, Northwestern University
Location: Chicago, Illinois, US
07.04.2017
Distance and the Timing of Licensing
Seminar at the IIPP Innovation Lunch, College of Management EPFL
Location: Lausanne, Switzerland
28.03.2017
Patent Boxes and the Relocation of Intellectual Property
2nd Abbé Grégoire Innovation Days, Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers
Location: Paris, France
03.03.2017
Patent Boxes and the Relocation of Intellectual Property
Seminar at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition
Location: Munich
15.02.2017
Patent Boxes and the Relocation of Intellectual Property
Seminar at the Cerna Doctoral Workshop, MINES ParisTech
Location: Paris, France
19.01.2017
Patent Boxes and the Relocation of Intellectual Property
Druid Academy 17 Conference, University of Southern Denmark
Location: Odense, Denmark
03.09.2016
Essays on the Markets for Patents
Doctoral Workshop of the 11th Annual Conference of the EPIP Association, Pembroke College, Oxford University
Location: Oxford, United Kingdom
28.06.2016
Tracking Patent Transfers in Europe
65th Conference of the French Economic Association (AFSE), Faculty of Law, Economics and Management
Location: Nancy, France