Watzinger, Martin; Fackler, Thomas; Nagler, Markus; … - 2017
We study the 1956 consent decree against the Bell System to investigate whether patents held by a dominant firm are … to license all its existing patents royalty-free. The compulsory licensing increased follow-on innovation building on … Bell patents by 17%. This effect is driven mainly by young and small companies. Yet, innovation increased only outside the …