From a firm’s perspective two competing forces are driving the decision to invest in innovation. On the one hand …, innovative performance is an important driver of profitability and growth. On the other hand, investments in innovation suffer … from negative externalities, i.e. spillovers to other firms, and hence imitation could be induced. To preempt imitation …

We use exogenous variation in the strength of trade secrets protection to show that a relative weakening of patents … (compared to trade secrets) has a disproportionately negative effect on the disclosure of processes - inventions that are not … otherwise visible to society. We develop a structural model of initial and follow-on innovation to determine the effects of such …

We investigate the causal effect of patent rights on cumulative innovation, using large-scale data that approximate the …

. While the individual effects of engaging in the listed practices on firm innovation are well-understood, the existing … sample of innovation-active firms from the German Community Innovation Survey, which includes information on the development … of standards, enhanced with information on firms' engagement in patenting and publishing. We find that 26% of innovation …

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 blocked unless firms gain FTO through patent invalidation. Using large …

R&D than noncooperating firms if spillovers are sufficiently large. Further, market demand and R&D productivity have a … collaborate in R&D is increasing in R&D productivity. The key findings of the theoretical model are tested using German innovation … survey data for the service sector. A simultaneous model for cooperation choice and innovation expenditures shows that R …