Economists and legal scholars have debated the reasons people adopt open source software, and accordingly whether and to what extent the open source model can scale, replacing proprietary rights as a primary means of production. In this study, we use the release by a biotechnology company of...

Patents constitute our foremost policy tool for encouraging innovation. However, because each new technology provides an important input to subsequent innovation, the exclusive rights conferred by a patent may also impose significant costs upon follow-on innovators. Optimal patent policy should...

Commentators have observed for years that patents do less good and cause more harm in the software industry than in other industries such as pharmaceuticals. They have pointed to a variety of problems and offered a variety of solutions. While there is some truth to each of these criticisms, the...

Software patents have received a great deal of attention in the academic literature. Unfortunately, most of that attention has been devoted to the problem of whether software is or should be patentable subject matter. With roughly 40,000 software patents already issued, and the Federal Circuit...