I provide a justification of intellectual property rights as a source of static efficiency gains in manufacturing, rather than dynamic benefits from greater innovation. I develop a property-rights model of a supply relationship with two dimensions of non- contractible investment. In equilibrium,...

We study how the market for innovation affects enforcement of patent rights. Conventional wisdom associates the gains from trade with comparative advantage in manufacturing or marketing. We show that these gains imply that patent transactions should increase litigation risk. We identify a new...

We analyze incentives to develop entrepreneurial ideas for venture capitalists (VCs) and incumbent firms. If VCs are sufficiently better at judging an idea's value and if it is sufficiently more costly to patent low than high value ideas, VCs acquire valuable ideas, develop them beyond the level...

This paper is the first of a larger project aimed at exploring, among other things, whether Europe has a consistent innovation policy in the context of EU economic law (competition policy, intellectual property law, sector regulation). As such, its primary aim is to present our approach for...

This paper develops a methodology to compare the quality of examination services across patent offices. Quality is defined as the extent to which patent offices comply with their patentability conditions in a transparent way. The methodology consists of a two-layer analytical framework...

For more than 40 years, governments and professional associations have acted, voted or lobbied against the implementation of the Community Patent (COMPAT). The econometric results and simulations presented in this paper suggest that, thanks to its attractiveness in terms of market size and a...

We study the problem of an inventor who brings to the market an innovation that can be legally copied. Imitators may 'enter' the market by copying the innovation at a cost or by buying from the inventor the knowledge necessary to reproduce and use the invention. The possibility of contracting...

We investigate incidence and evolution of patent thickets. Our empirical analysis is based on a theoretical model of patenting in complex and discrete technologies. The model captures how competition for patent portfolios and complementarity of patents affect patenting incentives. We show that...

Using a unique firm-level dataset this study shows that, contrary to the hopes of transition economies, foreign investors in the region are characterized by low, rather than high, R&D intensity. The results also indicate that investors with higher R&D spending are more likely to engage in...

The renewal of patents and their geographical scope for protection constitute two essential dimensions in a patent’s life, and probably the most frequently used patent value indicators. The intertwining of these dimensions (the geographical scope of protection may vary over time) makes their...