In patent-infringement litigation, if no established royalty for the patent in suit has emerged from multiple market transactions at a readily observable price, then the finder of fact needs to infer a reasonable royalty from the many factors identified in the Georgia-Pacific framework. The...

We analyze the development of the German knowledge base measured by co-classifications of patents by German inventors and relate this technological development to changes in the structure of the underlying inventor networks. Our central hypothesis states that technologies which become more...

Recent empirical studies suggest a need for a flexible patent regime responding to industry characteristics. In practice, sector-specific modifications of patent strength already exist but lack theoretical foundation. This paper intends to make up for this neglect by scrutinizing in what...

The question of protecting intellectual property rights by academic inventors was never seriously contemplated until the introduction of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980 in the US. The Act allowed universities to retain patent rights over inventions arising out of federally-funded research and to...

Novel early stage ideas face uncertainty on the expertise needed to elaborate them, which creates a need to circulate them widely to find a match. Yet as information is not excludable, shared ideas may be stolen, reducing incentives to innovate. Still, in idea-rich environments inventors may...

The economic theory of intellectual property rights is based on a rather narrow view of both competition and technological knowledge. We suggest some ways of enriching this framework with a more empirically grounded view of both and, by means of a simulation model, we analyze the impact of...