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 opposition at the European Patent Office. We find that patent invalidation …

. Where licensing fails, follow-on innovation is blocked unless firms gain FTO through patent invalidation. Using large …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 …

which German patent renewal fees were paid to full-term expiration in 1995. A search of subsequent U.S. and German patents … allowed to expire before their full term. The higher an invention's economic value estimate was, the more the relevant patent … simple patent counts as a measure of innovative contribution by acquiring data on citation frequencies and the number of …

which German patent renewal fees were paid to full-term expiration in 1995. A search of subsequent U.S. and German patents … allowed to expire before their full term. The higher an invention's economic value estimate was, the more the relevant patent …

We analyze the duration of the patent examination process at the EuropeanPatent Office (EPO). Our data contain … information related to the patent’seconomic and technical relevance, EPO capacity and workload as well as novelcitation measures … the patent grant by the examiner or an actual patent grant.Highly cited applications are approved faster by the EPO than …

Patent renewal studies reveal a highly rightward-skewed distribution of patent values. Our approach elicits valuations …