The traditional argument that shorter product cycles favor trade secret over patenting is reviewed. A game theoretic model provides an argument that shorter product cycles can induce firms to file more patent applications. The firms may be trapped in a prisoners' dilemma where all firms would...

Setting an industry-wide standard is crucial for information and communication technologies for interoperability, compatibility and efficiency. To minimize holdup problems, patent holders are often required to ex-ante commit to licensing their technologies under Fair, Reasonable and...

In Bowman v Monsanto, the United States Supreme Court will review a decision by the Federal Circuit creating an exception to the patent exhaustion doctrine for self-replicating technologies such as genetically modified germplasm propagated through seeds. This amicus brief represents the views of...

The paper investigates whether patent fees are an effective mechanism to deter the filing of low-quality patent applications. The study analyzes the effect on patent quality of the Patent Law Amendment Act of 1982, which resulted in a substantial increase in patenting fees at the U.S. Patent and...

We use detailed data to estimate the private costs and private rents of United States patents for publicly-traded firms. In analyzing costs, we first introduce a novel theoretical model to interpret our estimates. We then combine lawsuit data from Derwent Litalert with non-practicing entity...

The recent years in the European Union are characterised by various initiatives on internationalisation of the State's powers of the EU Member States. This internationalisation can have different scenarios. The scenario that dominates currently pending legislation initiatives implements an...

We analyze in a two-phase model the optimal mix of ex ante experimentation and ex post learning for the dynamic adoption of activities with uncertain payoffs. In a first pre-introduction phase, costly experimentation is undertaken to decide whether to adopt the activity or abandon...

In a patent infringement suit, the alleged infringer wins with a ruling of either patent invalidity or non-infringement. It is ambiguous which of these outcomes is preferred by the alleged infringer. Invalidity may increase current-period competition, but simultaneously removes constraints to...