We use an exogenous change in German Federal law to examine how entrepreneurial support and the ownership of patent rights influence academic entrepreneurship. In 2002, the German Federal Government enacted a major reform called Knowledge Creates Markets that set up new infrastructure to...

In the 1990s, patenting schemes changed in many respects: upcoming new technologies accelerated the shift from price competition towards competition based on technical inventions, a worldwide surge in patenting took place, and the patent thicket arose as a consequence of strategic patenting....