While much literature examines invention and patentlicensure as separate research entities, this research examines therelationship between the motivation to invent and the motivation to patent aninvention. The research presents a model utilized to understand thisrelationship. In order to...

This paper develops a simple duopoly model in which investments in Ramp;D and patents are inputs in the production of firm rents. Patents are necessary to appropriate the returns to the firm's own Ramp;D, but patents also create potential claims against the rents of rival firms. Analysis of the...

U.S. patent law protects only inventions that are nontrivial advances of the prior art. The legal requirement is called nonobviousness. During the 1980s, the courts relaxed the nonobviousness requirement for all inventions, and a new form of intellectual property, with a weaker nonobviousness...