I examine the private and social efficiency of patent pools in a setting in which owners of intellectual property (IP), are both vertically and horizontally related. The relationship is vertical through the ownership of complementary IP and horizontal in that at least one member owns a competing...

In 1998, the following article was published in the scientific research journal Science : ?Can Patents Deter Innovation ? The Anticommons in Biomedical Research?. M.A. Heller and R.S. Eisenberg explore how the expansion of intellectual property rights in the field of biomedical research...

In the European Union, competition policy regarding intellectual property related restrictions of competition has considerably changed in orientation. Whereas in the field of contractually agreed upon or concerted practices (Art.81 EC Treaty) licensing agreements, namely agreements on the...

The conventional antitrust wisdom is that the formation of patent pools is welfare en- hancing when patents are complementary, since the pool avoids a double-marginalization problem associated with independent licensing. The focus of this paper is on (down- stream) product development and...

Where product innovation requires several complementary patents, fragmented property rights can be a factor that limits firms' willingness to invest in the development and commercialization of new products. This paper studies multiple simultaneous R&D contests for complementary patents and how...

This paper develops a model of patent trolls to understand various litigation strategies employed by nonpracticing entities (NPE). We show that when a NPE faces multiple potential infringers who use related technologies, it can gain a credible threat to litigate even when it has no such...

We compare patent litigation cases across four European jurisdictions - Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the UK - covering cases filed during the period 2000-2008. For our analysis, we assemble a new dataset that contains detailed information at the case, litigant, and patent level for...

This paper develops a theory of patent portfolios in which firms accumulate an enormous amount of related patents in diverse technology fields such that it becomes impractical to develop a new product that with certainty does not inadvertently infringe on other firms' patent portfolios. We...

Post-grant validity challenges at patent offices rely on the private initiative of third parties to correct mistakes made by patent offices. We hypothesize that incentives to bring post-grant validity challenges are reduced when many firms benefit from revocation of a patent and when firms are...

This paper analyzes optimal cross-licensing arrangements between incumbent firms in the presence of potential entrants. The optimal cross-licensing royalty rate trades off incentives to sustain a collusive outcome vis-a-vis incentives to deter entry with the threat of patent litigation. We show...