Patents and trade secrets are often considered economic substitutes. Under this view, inventors can decide either to maintain an invention as a trade secret or seek a patent and disclose to the public the details of the invention. However, a handful of scholars have recognized that because the...

Previously, we introduced the concept of “data-generating patents,” which are patented inventions that by design produce valuable data through their operation or use. When holders of data-generating patents possess market power over the patented invention, they often indirectly enjoy market...

About half, probably more, of all patented inventions in the United States are never commercially exploited. Even many of the most commercially significant inventions take decades to come to market. In this article, I contend that the patent system is substantially retarding the...

Researchers studying the U.S. patent litigation system have typically had to rely on proprietary, commercial databases to retrieve comprehensive lists of litigated patents and associated case information, precluding publication of underlying data and the verification of study results. In other...

Numerous scholars have proposed many different explanations for why inventors and innovative companies patent. Few scholars, however, have conducted empirical studies seeking to confirm or deny these theories. Furthermore, there are only a handful of studies examining how entrepreneurs and...

We offer description and analysis of the 2008 Berkeley Patent Survey, summarizing the responses of 1,332 U.S.-based technology startups in the biotechnology, medical device, IT hardware, software, and Internet sectors. We discover that holding patents is more widespread among technology startups...

In 2008, a team at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law conducted the most comprehensive study to date on startup companies and the patent system. The study consisted of a survey, which led to primarily quantitative data, as well as more in-depth pre- and post-survey interviews...