We investigate the causal effect of patent rights on cumulative innovation, using large-scale data that approximate the patent universe in its technological and economic variety. We introduce a novel instrumental variable for patent invalidation that exploits personnel scarcity in post-grant...

We study the blocking effect of patents on follow-on innovation by others. We posit that follow-on innovation requires freedom to operate (FTO), which firms typically obtain through a license from the patentee holding the original innovation. Where licensing fails, follow-on innovation is...

This paper seeks to understand the intriguing but only sparsely explored phenomenon of “leisure time invention,” where the main underlying idea for the new product or process occurs when the inventor is away from the workplace. We add to previous research by focussing on the inventive...

Pharmaceutical firms typically enjoy market exclusivity for new drugs from concurrent protection of the underlying invention (through patents) and the clinical trials data submitted for market approval (through data exclusivity). Patent invalidation during drug development renders data...

The increasing commercialization of university discoveries has initiated acontroversy on the impacts for future scientific research. It has been argued that anincreasing orientation towards commercialization may have a negative impact onmore fundamental research efforts in science. Several...

In this paper we analyse the decision of firms in the Canadian manufacturing sectorto co-operate on innovation projects. Our focus is on the motives behind this decisionand the firm characteristics, both general and with respect to innovation activities,which influence the motives for innovation...

The goal of science is to advance knowledge, yet little is known about its value for marketplace inventions. While important breakthrough technologies could not have been developed without scientific background, skeptics argue that this is the exception rather than the rule, questioning the...

Our paper analyzes the interplay of organizational demography with the propensity to adopt an innovative practice. In particular, we examine how the demographical composition of professional German football teams influenced the adoption of the chain-defense-system (?Viererkette?) as well as the...

We show that team formation can serve as an implicit commitment device to overcome problems of self-control. If individuals have present-biased preferences, effort that is costly today but rewarded at some later point in time is too low from the perspective of an individual\'s long-run self. If...

This chapter analyzes the effect of intangible investment on firm efficiency with an emphasis on its software component. Stochastic production frontier approach is used to simultaneously estimate the production function and the determinants of technical efficiency in the software intensive...