This paper tests a number of hypotheses on the use and effectiveness of patents and trade secrets designed to protect … innovation. While previous studies have often considered patents and trade secrets as substitutes for one another, we investigate …

patenting, our results further suggest that knowledge creation alliances lead to patents that are filed to protect valuable …

both market-based (e.g. secrecy, lead time) as well as legal knowledge protection strategies (e.g. patents, trademarks) of …

characteristics of their patent portfolios. First, companies using patents to protect their technological knowledge base receive a … higher number of citations for their patents. Second, the motive of offensive - but not of defensive - blocking is related to … a higher incidence of oppositions, whereas companies using patents as bartering chips in collaborations receive fewer …

There is a growing literature that aims at assessing the private value of knowledge assets and patents. It has been … shown that patents and their quality as measured by citations received by future patents contribute significantly to the … forward citations patents can receive at the European Patent Office. While a patent can be cited as non-infringing state of …

Classical patent literature assumes that patents grant well-defined legal rights to exclude others from practicing an … and the certification effect of patents which signals the ventures' “quality” to investors. If the decision about patent … start-up companies are reluctant to launch new products if patents are pending. Further, pending patents attract risk …