This chapter documents instances from past centuries where inventors freely shared knowledge of their innovations with other inventors. It is widely believed that such knowledge sharing is a recent development, as in Open Source Software. Our survey shows, instead, that innovators have long...

A model of patent dispute resolution, which alsoconsiders early stage patent and development investments by both the patentowner and the possible defendant, is presented. The model is comprised of three stages involving an investment firm and aninfringing firm. The three stages of the model are...

In theory, property rights allow markets to achieve Pareto optimal allocations. But the literature on contracting largely ignores what happens when property rights are imperfectly defined and enforced. Although some models include weak enforcement or poorly defined rights or "anticommons," this...