Merger activities in innovative industries point to a relation between mergers and innovation. Firms' innovative ideas may spillover to other firms dis-incentivizing innovation activities, and merger may be a way to capture innovation spillover. The merger-innovation nexus has been well studied...

A higher fragmentation of patent ownership following the recent U.S. pro-patent shifts has built overlapping property rights or patent thickets for firms with cumulative innovations. This has made the use of other firms' innovations costlier, due to higher transaction costs, licensing fees, and...