This paper documents a shift in the nature of innovation in the information technology (IT) industry. Using comprehensive data on all IT patents granted by the USPTO from 1980-2002, we find strong evidence of a change in IT innovation that is systematic, substantial, and increasingly dependent...

With increasing frequency, generic drug manufacturers in the United States are able to challenge the monopoly status of patent-protected drugs even before their patents expire. The legal foundation for these challenges is found in Paragraph IV of the Hatch-Waxman Act. If successful, these...

Recent research has suggested that the reduction of entry regulation can promote firm entry and job creation, but little is known about the quality of firms and jobs created through these reforms. To shed light on this question, we employ data from Portugal, a country which implemented one of...

We examine the impact of a large number of Japanese government-sponsored research consortia on the research productivity of participating firms by measuring their patenting in the targeted technologies before, during, and after participation. Consistent with the predictions of the theoretical...

One of the alleged benefits of the recent global movement to strengthen intellectual property rights (IPRs) is that such reforms accelerate transfers of technology between countries. The paper examines how technology transfer among U.S. multinational firms changes in response to a series of IPR...