From a firm’s perspective two competing forces are driving the decision to invest in innovation. On the one hand, innovative performance is an important driver of profitability and growth. On the other hand, investments in innovation suffer from negative externalities, i.e. spillovers to other...

The patent system gives the courts discretion to tailor patentability standards flexibly across technologies to provide optimal incentives for innovation. For chemical inventions, the courts deem them unpatentable if the chemical lacks a practical, non-research-based use at the time patent...

This chapter summarizes the basic characteristics of patent data as an innovation indicator and reviews some of the recent research using patent data, focusing on major developments since Griliches in 1990 [Griliches, Z. (1990). “Patent statistics as economic indicators: A survey”. Journal...

Technology leaders protecting a technological headstart with a patent are provided with a powerful legal measure to restrict market entry. We analyze the impact of knowledge spillover on the decision to patent and the effect of varying patent breadth on the threat of market entry. An empirical...

This paper presents a theoretical and empirical investigation of the two basic effects of patenting: the positive effect of temporarily mitigating competition, and the negative effect of mandatory disclosure of a patent application. Providing empirical evidence for the presented theoretical...

In this paper, we offer a novel explanation to the surge in patenting bserved during the last years. With low patentability standards at PTOs (Patent and Trademark Offices awarding so-called bad patents), not only "false innovators" have the chance of being granted patents but also, and more...

Patent thickets have been identified as a major stumbling block in the development of new technologies, creating the need to accurately identify thicket membership. Various citations-based methodologies (Graevenitz et al, 2011; Clarkson, 2005) have been proposed, which have relied on broad survey...

An informed (prospective) plaintiff can send a take-it-or-leave-it demand to an uninformed (prospective) defendant with the threat of a lawsuit that may not be credible. In this context, the well-known perfect sepa- rating equilibrium in litigation bargaining game (Reinganum and Wilde, 1986) no...

In this paper, we offer a novel explanation to the surge in patenting bserved during the last years. With low patentability standards at PTOs (Patent and Trademark Offices awarding so-called bad patents), not only “false innovators” have the chance of being granted patents but also, and more...