Intellectual property rests on a simple incentive rationale: without imitation barriers, innovators rationally decline to invest. But this blanket proposition is incompatible with markets where innovation proceeds without substantial recourse to intellectual property and imitation is widespread....

It is commonly observed that certification intermediaries mitigate informational asymmetries by “lending” reputational capital to support transacting parties' quality commitments. However, this proposition is challenged by cases in which well-established intermediaries have failed to detect...

A largely unqualified consensus among substantial portions of the scholarly, policymaking, advocacy and business communities has taken the view that the U.S. patent system, since approximately the early 1980s, has endangered innovation by adopting historically strong forms of patent protection...

It is generally assumed that stronger intellectual property protections have adverse competitive effects by raising entry costs and shielding incumbents. This book identifies a significant range of circumstances in which stronger IP protections lower entry costs for innovators who have robust...

Scholars and other commentators widely assert that enforcement of contractual and other limitations on labor mobility deters innovation. Based on this view, federal and state legislators have taken, and continue to consider, actions to limit the enforcement of covenants not-to-compete in...

Copyright is typically justified by the rationale that profits induce authors and other artists to invest resources in cultural production. This rationale is vulnerable to the objection that some artists have intrinsic incentives to invest in cultural production and do not require significant...

Policy approaches to the enforcement and licensing of standard-essential patents in wireless communications markets reflect the competing interests of entities that specialize in the innovation or implementation segments of the technology supply chain. This same principle can anticipate the...

Major competition regulators, and substantial portions of the scholarly community, have rapidly adopted the view that “killer acquisitions” and “kill zones” constitute significant sources of competitive risk arising from incumbent acquisitions of emerging firms in digital markets. Based...

It is widely assumed that platform technology markets are inherently prone to converge on monopoly outcomes in which a single firm or a handful of firms enjoy market power due to a combination of network effects and switching costs. This assumption supports both proposed and enacted regulatory...

Voluntary forfeiture of intellectual assets – often, exceptionally valuable assets – is surprisingly widespread in information technology markets. A simple economic rationale can account for these practices. By giving away access to core technologies, a platform holder commits against...