This symposium article discusses issues raised for patent processes and policy created by inventions generated by artificial intelligence (AI). Using insights from economic research on intellectual property rights, it argues in favor of allowing patent protection for AI-generated inventions....

This study provides the first quantification of buyers' role in the outcome of R&D procurement contracts. We combine together four data sources on US federal R&D contracts, follow-on patented inventions, federal public workforce characteristics, and perception of their work environment. By...

The 'quality' of novel technological innovations is extremely variable, and the ability to measure innovation quality is essential to sensible, evidence-based policy. Patents, an often vital precursor to a commercialised innovation, share this heterogeneous quality distribution. A pertinent...

This paper analyzes how travel time between contracting parties slows down transactions on markets for ideas. We put forward a model of buyer-seller trade over ideas and test the model’s predictions on a novel dataset of patent sales and licensing deals in France. To address endogeneity...

The arrival of creative machines--software capable of producing human-like creative content--has triggered a series of legal challenges about intellectual property. The outcome of these legal challenges will shape the future of the creative industry in ways that could enhance or jeopardize...

This paper estimates the effect of patent pledges, commitments made voluntarily by patent holders to limit the enforcement of their patents, on follow-on inventions. Patent pledges have been gaining popularity in recent years thanks to the highly visible pledges of companies such as Google and...