By using the PatVal-EU dataset we find that the most important determinant of patent licensing is firm size. Patent breadth, value, protection, and other factors suggested by the literature also have an impact, but not as important. In addition, most of these factors affect the willingness to...

In recent years, firms have increasingly contributed to and been confronted with a patent landscape characterized by numerous but marginal inventions, overlapping claims and patent fences. Literature suggests that both the fragmentation of ownership and the threat of a firm's patent applications...

In the ICT sector, product-software is an important factor for the quality of the products (e.g. cell phones). In this context, open source software enables firms to avoid quality competition as they can cooperate on quality without an explicit contract. The economics of open source (OS) versus...

We describe the transfer of patents in late 19th- and early 20th- century Germany using a new and comprehensive database containing information on about 20,000 transactions. The number of transactions shows an upward trend, in total numbers and as a share of patents in force. In total, about...

We analyze the strategic protection decision of an innovator between a patent and secrecy in a setting with horizontally differentiated products. By introducing the patenting decision into the well known circular city model, the impact of the disclosure requirement linked to a patent application...

In this paper we empirically investigate the theoretical results obtained in Zaby (2009). From the theoretical model, which introduces the decision to patent into a setting with horizontally differentiated products we deduce several hypotheses and test these empirically. We find that the...

This paper empirically investigates a firm’s propensity to patent. It thereby builds on a theoretical model on a firms' patenting decision in a market with vertically differentiated products. We deduce and empirically test several hypotheses from the theoretical results regarding patenting and...

We examine the relationship between fragmented intellectual property (IP) rights and the innovative performance of firms, taking into consideration the role played by in-licensing of IP. We find that firms facing more fragmented IP landscapes have a higher probability of in-licensing. For firms...

Using a new dataset encompassing more than 2,200 inventions made by Max Planck Society researchers from 1980 to 2004, we explore how licensee and technology characteristics affect the licensing and commercialization of technologies from public research. We find no evidence that spin-offs and...