JEL Classifications: L41, K21 Abstract: When infringement of a patent dissipates profit relative to the licensing agreement that would otherwise occur, damages under the lost-profit rule deter infringement, and otherwise not. We develop this point in a general model and give two examples....

We investigate how liability rules and property rules affect the incentives to invest in research tools. We argue that it is hard to deter infringement under any of the enforcement regimes available. However, counterintuitively, a credible threat of infringement can actually be beneficial to the...

A small sample of 38 Advanced Technology Projects funded between 1993 and 1996 are surveyed to explore the reasons for university non-participation, or, in the cases where they did participate, whether the partnerships encountered any difficulties from their participation. 32 percent report that...

The Microsoft antitrust case focused public attention on the role of antitrust enforcement in preserving the forces of innovation in high-technology markets. Traditionally, regulators focused on whether companies artificially hiked prices or reduced output. Now, they're increasingly likely to...

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...

Our objective in this paper is to review what economists have said about incentive schemes to promote R&D, including intellectual property. While we focus on environments in which other forms of protection are not available, we note that other protections can obviate the need for any formal...

Intellectual property treaties have two main types of provisions: national treatment of foreign inventors, and harmonization of protections. I characterize the circumstances in which countries would want to treat foreign inventors the same as national inventors. I then argue that national...

We consider a model of the innovative environment where there is a distinction between ideas for R\&D investments and the investments themselves. We investigate the optimal reward policy and how it depends on whether ideas are scarce or obvious. By foregoing investment in a current idea, society...