We investigate the value creation or destruction associated with the introduction of software patents in the United States in two ways. The first looks at the cumulative abnormal returns to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) firms around the time of important court decisions that...

This paper examines several recent avenues of empirical research into the enforcement of" intellectual property rights. To frame these issues, we start with a stylized model of the patent" litigation process. The bulk of the paper is devoted to linking the empirical literature on patent"...

Entrepreneurial firms are important sources of patented inventions. Yet little is known about what happens to patents "released" to the market when startups fail. This study provides a first look at the frequency and speed with which patents originating from failed startups are redeployed to new...

We provide evidence on the value of patents to startups by leveraging the random assignment of applications to examiners with different propensities to grant patents. Using unique data on all first-time applications filed at the U.S. Patent Office since 2001, we find that startups that win the...