We analyze a patent race where the first innovator receives a time-dependent reward while all firms incur costs. When firms are identical, there is a unique, symmetric, mixed-strategy equilibrium that yields zero expected profits for all firms. Furthermore, the expected innovation time is an...

We study a winner-take-all R&D race where firms are privately informed about the uncertain arrival rate of the invention. Due to the interdependent-value nature of the problem, the equilibrium displays a strong herding effect that distinguishes our framework from war-of-attrition models....