In liability lawsuits (e.g. patent infringement) a plaintiff demands compensation from a defendant and the parties often negotiate a settlement to avoid a costly trial. Liability insurance creates bargaining leverage for the defendant in this settlement negotiation. We study the characteristics...

We study information disclosure and diversification in contests with technological uncertainty, where agents can pursue different technologies to compete in the contest, but there is uncertainty regarding which will be implemented ex post. The principal can credibly reveal some information about...

We study pay-for-delay settlements between a patent holder and a challenger when the patent holder can introduce follow-on products. We show that ignoring follow-on products biases the inferred competitive harm of pay-for-delay settlements (the "Actavis inference"). The reason is that patent...

We model “patent privateering”—whereby producing firms sell patents to patent assertion entities (PAEs) which then license them under the threat of litigation—in a bargaining game. PAEs can negotiate higher licensing fees than producing firms, because they cannot be counter-sued for...

We study contests with technological uncertainty, where contestants can invest in different technologies of uncertain value. The principal can disclose an informative yet noisy public signal about the merit of each technology, which can focus investments into more promising ones or increase...