Recent empirical studies suggest a need for a flexible patent regime responding to industry characteristics. In … practice, sector-specific modifications of patent strength already exist but lack theoretical foundation. This paper intends to … make up for this neglect by scrutinizing in what direction industry characteristics influence optimal patent strength. It …

Encouraging inventors to disclose new inventions is an important economic justification for the patent system, yet the … technical information contained in patent applications is often inadequate and unclear. This paper proposes a novel approach to … measure disclosure in patent applications using algorithms from computation allinguistics. Borrowing methods from the …

We study the causal impact of invalidating marginally valid patents during post-grant opposition at the European Patent … participation of a patent's original examiner in the opposition division as an instrument. We find a disciplinary effect of … invalidation: Affected inventors file 20% fewer patent applications in the decade after the decision. This effect is entirely …

strong, positive impact of policy and globalization on cross-border patent flows, especially from North to South. A … counterfactual welfare analysis suggests that the increase in patent flows from North to South has benefited both regions, with South …

Patent boxes have been heavily debated for their role in corporate tax competition. This paper uses firm-level data for … determinants of patent registration across a large sample of countries. Importantly, we disentangle the effects of corporate income … taxation from the tax advantage of patent boxes. We also exploit a new and original dataset on patent box features such as the …

This paper develops a model of patent trolls to understand various litigation strategies employed by nonpracticing …

In this paper we develop a theory of patenting in which a firm preserves its reputation to only apply for a patent …. In particular, we analyze the merits of different patent systems. …

This paper analyzes patent pools and their effects on innovation incentives. It is shown that the pro …-competitive effects of patent pools for complementary patents naturally extend for dynamic innovation incentives. However, this simple … case, the licensing fees reflect the strength of patents. Patent pools of complementary patents can be used to discourage …

patentability standards at PTOs (Patent and Trademark Offices awarding so-called bad patents), not only "false innovators" have the … chance of being granted patents but also, and more interestingly, "true innovators" are forced to patent more intensively … distortions caused by bad patents. Moreover, we show that introducing a two-tiered patent system is unlikely to improve market …