The role of patents is threefold: first, they are important to state the property rights of an invention; second, they are necessary to secure financing for starting a new venture; third, they are fundamental to recoup R&D investments. The main difficulty in preventing unauthorized use of an...

This paper investigates on price competition in the Hotelling location model with linear transportation costs when consumer preferences are affected by the number of consumers shopping at the same store. A consumption externality permits to consider the imitation and the congestion effects which...

This paper analyzes the price-setting behavior of multiproduct firms in a differentiated product market. The structure considered is one where large companies offer either a set of close substitutes (market segmentation) or a set of distant substitutes (market interlacing). The modelling...