This article examines licensing as a means of choosing the competitors which a patentee-monopolist will face in the period after the patent expires. The queue of entrants consists of two firms which differ in their relative "strengths" as competitors (for example, by size or level of marginal...

Innovators who have made significant breakthroughs may be tempted to get a head start in developing the applications of a new discovery before commercializing any new product. We consider how this socially undesirable waiting period and the pattern of development of subsequent innovations are...