A temporary change in pay to employed inventors around the time of patent application has been observed in a number of … who hire workers in R&D functions to make product innovations. The innovation process consists of distinct phases … separated by a patent application. Firms compete to attract workers, and workers can transfer part of the generated new …

Licensing in a patent thicket allows firms to either avoid or resolve hold-up. Firms' R&D incentives depend on whether … they license ex ante or ex post. We develop a model of a patent portfolio race, which allows for endogenous R&D efforts, to … likely to avoid patent portfolio races, since the threat of hold-up increases. On the other hand, more valuable technologies …