Economists and policy makers have long recognized that innovators must be able to appropriate a reasonable portion of the social benefits of their innovations if innovation is to be suitably rewarded and encouraged. However, this paper identifies a number of specific fact patterns under which...

Keywords: patents, innovation, oligopoly JEL codes: L13, O31. ABSTRACT: Many inventions, great and small, are discovered independently at roughly the same time by two or more individuals or organizations. Famous examples include the light bulb (Edison and Swan), the telephone (Bell and Gray),...

Passage of the Sherman Act in the United States in 1890 set the stage for a century of jurisprudence regarding monopoly, cartels, and oligopoly. Among American statutes that regulate commerce, the Sherman Act is unequaled in its generality. The Act outlawed "every contract, combination or...