We study the question of optimal licensing contracts in a leadership structure and discuss the welfare implications. We assume that the size of the innovation is exogenous and the patent holder is a competitor in the product market. Then welfare depends on the types of contracts available and on...

We consider an interaction of competing firms in an integrated world market and study their R&D incentives under each of product patent and process patent regimes. We follow a framework generally observed in the drug industry. We show that product patent regime leads to a larger R&D investment....