We study an endogenous growth model where a profit-motivated R and D sector coexists with the introduction of free blueprints invented by philanthropists. These goods are priced at marginal cost, contrary to proprietary ones which are produced by a monopoly owned by the inventor. We show that...

In this paper we carefully link knowledge flows to and from a firm's innovation process with this firm's investment decisions. Three types of investments are considered: investments in applied research, investments in basic research, and investments in intellectual property protection. Only when...

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...

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...

This paper analyzes the patenting decision of a successful inventor in a model of dynamic technology adoption with asymmetric firms. We show that the extent of the inventor's technological headstart is decisive for his patenting behavior. The overall patenting effect consists of two parts, a...

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...

I study the incentives of Cournot duopolists to share their technologies with their competitor in markets where intellectual property rights are absent and imitation is costless. The trade-off between a signaling effect and an expropriation effect determines the technology-sharing incentives. In...

We analyze the strategic protection decision of an innovator between a patent and secrecy in a setting with horizontally differentiated products. By introducing the patenting decision into the well known circular city model, the impact of the disclosure requirement linked to a patent application...

This article explores the propensity to patent in the light of the disclosure effect. Unlike earlier approaches concerned with the patenting decision, we take into account that a disclosure effect may decrease the merits of patenting by facilitating inventing around the patent for competitors....

Continued lobbying by high-end, American designers for intellectual property-type fashion design protection has culminated in the proposed Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act, intended to introduce EU standards. Using a sequential, 2-firm, vertical differentiation framework,...