Recent empirical research has provided compelling evidence that the proliferation of intellectual property rights (IP) and the fragmentation of patent rights among different patent holders have created barriers to innovation and impediments to the commercialization of scientific discoveries. Legal and economic scholars have suggested that due to the rising number of patent applications, the limited resources in patent offices around the world and the lack of sufficient time to prior art search, examiners have failed to conduct thorough patent examination processes. Moreover, researchers have linked the growing number of overlapping intellectual property rights to the tragedy of the anticommons and to the concept of patent thickets. Multiple studies have been performed in order to develop measures that could verify the existence of patent thickets and to better understand the social and economic impact of fragmentary patent owners. When it comes to the energy sector, the problem of patent thickets is now even more important. As the technological innovation in this sector increases and the energy-related patenting continues to grow, it has been argued that the issue of patent thickets may have a direct impact on investment decisions and the long-run development of this sector. This paper presents an overview of literature on the definition of a patent thicket and summarizes some of the possible factors causing thickets to arise. Additionally, it discusses the recent developments in patent thicket measures and patent thicket identification methods.
The Polish power generation system is based mostly on coal-fired power plants. Therefore, the coal mining sector is strongly sensitive to changes in the energy sector, of which decarbonization is the crucial one. The EU Emission Trading System (EU ETS) requires power generating companies to purchase European Emission Allowances (EUAs), whose prices have recently soared. They have a direct impact on the cost efficiency of hard coal-fired power generation, hence influence the consumption of hard coal on the power sector. In this context, the objective of this paper is to estimate the hard coal consumption in various regions of Poland under selected forecasts of the EUA price. To investigate this question, two models are employed:
- the PolPower_LR model that simulates the Polish power generation system,
- the FSM _LR model that optimizes hard coal supplies.
Three scenarios differentiated by the EUA price are designed for this study. In the first one, the average EUA price from 2014–2017 is assumed. In the second and third, the EUA prices are assumed accordingly to the NPS and the SDS scenario of the World Energy Outlook. In this study we consider only existing, modernized, under construction and announced coal-fired power generation units. The results of the study indicate that regardless of the scenario, a drop in hard coal consumption by power generation units is observed in the entire period of analysis. However, the dynamics of these changes differ. The results of this analysis prove that the volume of hard coal consumption may differ by even 136 million Mg (in total) depending on the EUA prices development scenario. The highest cumulated volume of hard coal consumption is observed in the Opolski, Radomski and Sosnowiecki region, regardless of the considered scenario.
The paper investigates the competitiveness of the Polish hard coal mining sector as a fuel source for heat and power generation. The main objective of the study is to make a quantitative assessment of the impact of the price relationship between domestic and imported steam coal on the consumption of domestic fine coal in the Polish heat and power generation sector. For this purpose, a long-term mathematical model of the Polish steam coal market is employed and scenarios that mimic the relationship between domestic and imported steam coal prices is developed. The following results are analysed:
- the volume of total domestic steam coal consumption under the scenarios analysed,
- the absolute difference in domestic steam coal consumption under the scenarios analysed in comparison with the scenario 0%,
- the total imported and domestic steam coal consumption in the period analysed.
In addition, the results were depicted in cartograms in order to present the distribution of domestic and imported coal consumption in the various regions of Poland.
The results of the study indicate that the supply of steam coal in Poland can be completely covered by domestic mines when the price of domestic coal is from –40% to –20% lower than that of imported coal. For the remaining scenarios, the consumption of imported coal increases and reaches its highest value in the scenario +40%, in which imported coal covered of 71% of total steam coal consumption in Poland over the period.
The conclusions presented in this paper provide valuable findings and policy insights into the competitiveness of domestic mines and management of domestic production both in Poland and other countries in which power generation systems are mostly dominated by coal.