What economic factors should I consider if I want to know the relationship between innovation and the presence of patents/copyrights? Do copyright/patents (generally Intellectual Property Rights) stifle innovation? Does it slow down economic growth?

OK, I don't know if this is for a paper or what. I'll answer you like it is. I would say that IP law stimulates innovation because it allows one to reap the profits of their ingenuity. India, for example, has awful IP law. When is the last time you saw a great innovation coming out of the second most populace nation in the world? Necessity is the mother of invention. Innovation is beyond that. It is a product of the desire to make more profit. To some, that is a necessity.

Innovation allows economies to explode, but, at times, implode. Look at the .com mess of the 90's. Nonetheless, after that process of weeding out, the internet is how things are done.