De manière générale, les incitations à innover dépendent d'un certain nombre de caractéristiques : coût de la R&D, nature de l'innovation, financement de la R&D... Dans ce cadre d'analyse, on peut montrer qu'il n'existe pas une relation simple entre un type d'innovation et son...

A large literature asserts that standard essential patents (SEPs) allow their owners to “hold up” innovation by charging fees that exceed their incremental contribution to a final product. We evaluate two central, interrelated predictions of this SEP hold-up hypothesis: (1) SEP-reliant...

Proponents of stronger copyright terms have argued that stronger copyright terms encourage creativity by increasing the profitability of authorship. Empirical evidence, however, is scarce, because data on the profitability of authorship is typically not available to the public. Moreover at...

What is the optimal system of intellectual property rights to encourage innovation? Empirical evidence from economic history can help to inform important policy questions that have been difficult to answer with modern data: For example, does the existence of strong patent laws encourage...

We survey the economic literature, both theoretical and empirical, on the choice of intellectual property protection by firms. Our focus is on the trade-offs between using patents and disclosing versus the use of secrecy, although we also look briefly at the use of other means of formal...

Among the main criticisms currently confronting the US Patent and Trademark Office are concerns about software patents and what role they play in the web of litigation now proceeding in the smart phone industry. We will examine the evidence on the litigation and the treatment by the Patent...

The case against patents can be summarized briefly: there is no empirical evidence that they serve to increase innovation and productivity, unless productivity is identified with the number of patents awarded—which, as evidence shows, has no correlation with measured productivity. Both theory...

The specific characteristics of the R&D system of the modern molecular biotechnology lead to the fact that patent protection for genetic inventions cause almost simultaneously an useful information effect as well as a harmful blocking effect. Within this context, the present papers shows that...

This article describes six common challenges of design, incentives, and governance that arise in establishing platform businesses. It also proposes solutions. It considers, for example, how to open a platform to decentralized innovation yet still earn a return; how to incorporate best-of-breed...

Software is a potentially excludable public good. It is possible, at some cost, to exclude non-paying users from its consumption by using copyright law or technological restraints. Licensing the software under proprietary license terms makes of it a private good, licensing it under the BSD does...