Having done some of this modelling myself, I think it’s difficult to pin down the exact outcome of a particular race. Some empirical evidence suggests that winning a patent race leads to more follow-on innovation, while other models, including those fitted to data, suggest that laggards are often more innovative. However, models also suggest that laggards who are quite far behind tend to give up racing entirely.
My tentative conclusion is that the finding you highlight is plausible enough such that I’d consider small gaps in innovativeness to ~= neck-and-neck races, but larger gaps to produce a monopoly-like situation for the race leader. Determining where precisely this cutoff, of course, is difficult.
Having done some of this modelling myself, I think it’s difficult to pin down the exact outcome of a particular race. Some empirical evidence suggests that winning a patent race leads to more follow-on innovation, while other models, including those fitted to data, suggest that laggards are often more innovative. However, models also suggest that laggards who are quite far behind tend to give up racing entirely.
My tentative conclusion is that the finding you highlight is plausible enough such that I’d consider small gaps in innovativeness to ~= neck-and-neck races, but larger gaps to produce a monopoly-like situation for the race leader. Determining where precisely this cutoff, of course, is difficult.