This paper is an interpretive history of federal support for the American software industry from its beginnings through the 1980s. As in other high-technology cases, federal _ especially defense-related _ support for software was crucial early in the technology's development, but the flow of...

The recent surge in U.S. patenting and expansion of patentable subject matter has increased patent office backlogs and raised concerns that in some cases patents of insufficient quality or with inadequate search of prior art are being issued. At the same time patent litigation and its costs are...

We report the results of the first comparative study of the determinants and effects of patent oppositions in Europe and of re- examinations on corresponding patents issued in the United States. The analysis is based on a dataset consisting of matched EPO and US patents. Our analysis focuses on...