While it is clear that there has been a 'regional inversion' in American patent activity over the past 25 years (i.e. relative rise of the Northwest and Southwest at the expense of the traditional invention hotbeds of the Northeast and Midwest), the reason is still open to speculation. Intuition...

This paper reviews the literature on the economics of intellectual property rights (IPR), with a particular focus on the main industrial property rights of patents and trade marks. Intellectual property rights arise from the legal protection accorded to certain inventions or creations. We begin...

This paper studies the question why patents for multi-product monopolies should be finite. The monopolist is developing new versions of the basic product continuously and simultaneously invests into the improvement of all the existing and newly created products, thus optimally managing both...

Patents lead to ex-post dead-weight losses arising from a non-competitive market structure for the invention. Many have argued that introducing independent invention as a defense (IID) to patent infringement can increase social welfare by decreasing such dead-weight losses at the price of a...

While it is clear that there has been a "regional inversion" in American patent activity over the past 25 years (i.e. relative rise of the Northwest and Southwest at the expense of the traditional invention hotbeds of the Northeast and Midwest), the reason is still open to speculation. Intuition...

In 2015, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Standardization Association made some controversial changes to its patent policy. The changes include a recommended method of calculation of FRAND royalty rates, and a request to members holding a standard essential patent...

This paper studies the puzzle of what caused the surge in US patenting in the 1980s. I first argue that, under the standard view of patents, where value depends only on the appropriable rents created by the patent's exclusive property rights over related technologies and product markets, this...

Under the assumption of similar general legal environments, the following analysis suggests that a strategy of confidential secrecy in R&D is less significant for Japanese enterprises. Founded upon this difference the amount of patent induced information disclosure effects for Japan is not as...

Under the assumption of similar general legal environments, the following analysis suggests that a strategy of confidential secrecy in R&D is less significant for Japanese enterprises. Founded upon this difference the amount of patent induced information disclosure effects for Japan is not as...

Current innovation policies (including patents) are based on the traditional vision of knowledge, which assumes that knowledge circulates as fluently as pure information. The existence of knowledge spillovers leads to under investments in research activities and thus, calls for strong knowledge...