This paper analyzes the optimal protection strategy for an innovator of a complex innovation who faces the risk of … imitation by a competitor. We suppose that the innovation can be continuously fragmented into sub-innovations. We characterize … the optimal mix of patent and trade secrets when the innovator faces a strict novelty requirement and can only patent a …

This paper analyzes the optimal protection strategy for an innovator of a complex innovation who faces the risk of … imitation by a competitor. We suppose that the innovation can be continuously fragmented into sub-innovations. We characterize … the optimal mix of patent and trade secrets when the innovator faces a strict novelty requirement and can only patent a …

Hybrid licences tie trade secret rights (which have no fixed expiration) to related patent rights (which expire … that infinite-term licensing (ITL) for patent rights may be better than a limited-term patent, when returns to the licensor … returns to the licensor are constrained but not necessarily fixed, without requiring a change in the length of the patent term. …

role of patents and trade secrets on innovation. According to the analysis, first, service firms have fewer product … a low propensity for holding patents, but their holding of trade secrets is comparable to that of the manufacturing … firms. Third, patents and trade secrets have positive relationships with product innovations, and the effects are …

property. It is organized around the two principal objectives of intellectual property law: promoting innovation and aesthetic … creativity (focusing on patent, trade secret, and copyright protection) and protecting integrity of the commercial marketplace … protection and other means of addressing the economic problem (such as public funding and prizes in the case of patent and …