New technology is usually expensive and it takes time for manufacturers to make the technology more accessible. In the stereo industry, the first Super Audio Compact Disk (SACD) player made by Sony, SCD-1, sold for $5,000 in 1999; in 2002 the cheapest of Sony's new SACD players, SCD-CE775, had a...

We develop and test a model of the patenting and R&D decisions of an innovating firm whose scientist-employees sometime quit to join or start a rival. In our model, the innovating firm patents to protect itself from its employees. We show theoretically that the risk of a scientist's departure...