Economists and strategic management theorists interested in sustained competitive advantage often examine firms' management of knowledge. Somewhat surprisingly, the interaction between knowledge creation and knowledge capture practices has received little attention. Using survey data from nearly...

One component of the duration of pending patents - why applicants choose to delay the examination process - is modelled. We use a matched sample of 9597 patent applications to examine this issue. Controlling for differences between patent offices, we find evidence that applicants create...

In this paper, we identify three policy instruments governments have at their disposal to affect the power of patent rights to prevent imitation: the size of the inventive step used to make the patent granting decision, the rigour of the patent examination process and the predisposition of the...

While most developed countries apply the same criteria to determine whether an invention is eligible to be protected by a patent, there are substantial procedural differences in the way in which different patent offices examine a patent application. This means that a patent application may be...