The Effect of Protection of Intellectual Property and Patent on Iran's Economic Growth

This paper aims to study the relationship between intellectual property and patent protection and economic growth in Iran using Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) technique during 1979 – 2010. This model is based on economic growth models in 1990s. The number of patents is used to measure the impact of patents on economic growth. Moreover، we investigate the casual relationships among economic growth، degree of economic openness، foreign direct investment، information and communication technology (ICT) and human development. The results indicate that patent protection has a positive and significant impact on economic growth. Furthermore، the casual relationships from degree of economic openness، foreign direct investment، ICT and human development to economic growth are positively significant. Based on numerical results، one-unit increases in ICT، HDI، patents، government expenditure and oil revenues lead to 0. 10، 0. 12، 0. 10، 0. 39 and 0. 21 percent increase in economic growth respectively. Hence، we conclude that the higher intellectual property and patent protection results in high economic growth.