The strengthening of the U.S. patent regime in the early eighties was followed by a sharp increase in patenting and a … rather small increase in the in Ramp;D expenditure in some industries in the U.S. This patent paradox is prominently observed … number of ideas to successfully develop a final product. In this paper I examine the effects of a change in the patent regime …

We analyze optimal patent design when innovators can rely on secrecy to protect their innovations. Secrecy provides a … temporary monopoly, which terminates when the secret leaks out or the innovation is duplicated. We find conditions under which … the optimal policy is to induce the first innovator to patent. Furthermore, we derive the optimal scope of the rights …

In this paper we look at patents as alternative to trade secrets. We disentangle the disclosure motive for patent … protection from the traditional reward motive by adjusting the level of patent protection so as to make the innovator just … indifferent between patenting and keeping the innovation secret. Thus, we keep the reward (expected profits) to the innovator …

innovation strategy reflects the patent race motives and hedging demand of defendant firms against future litigation. These real …Using novel inter-firm patent litigation data, we show that defendant firms become financially constrained, reduce … innovation activity, and shift toward exploitative innovation leveraging past experience and expertise. The exploitative …

A current refrain in patent policy discourse is that “overly-broad” patents of “dubious validity” retard innovation. We … scope and/or validity harm innovation. The Selden automobile patent is alleged to have been such a patent. We review the … and validity of Selden’s patent claims, there is no evidence that innovation was retarded. We show that Henry Ford and …

Critics claim that patent screening is ineffective, granting low-quality patents that impose unnecessary social costs …. We develop an integrated framework, involving patent office examination, fees, and endogenous validity challenges in the … courts, to study patent screening both theoretically and quantitatively. In our model, some inventions require the patent …

We investigate the causal effect of patent rights on cumulative innovation, using large-scale data that approximate the … patent universe in its technological and economic variety. We introduce a novel instrumental variable for patent invalidation … that exploits personnel scarcity in post-grant opposition at the European Patent Office. We find that patent invalidation …

We investigate the causal effect of patent rights on cumulative innovation, using large-scale data that approximate the … patent universe in its technological and economic variety. We introduce a novel instrumental variable for patent invalidation … that exploits personnel scarcity in post-grant opposition at the European Patent Office. We find that patent invalidation …

Patent trolls appropriate innovation rents by threatening to block other players’ R&D-related value creation. Legal … manufacturers, we show that this is not the case. Patent extortion will remain viable in technologically crowded industries as long … patent trolls, and discuss adjustments to their R&D strategies regarding product design, interaction with trolls …

subsidizing the costs of patent applications has no impact on the outcome …