The traditional argument that shorter product cycles favor trade secret over patenting is reviewed. A game theoretic model provides an argument that shorter product cycles can induce firms to file more patent applications. The firms may be trapped in a prisoners' dilemma where all firms would...

Using firm level panel data from the U.S., I explore the relationship between firm size and R&D productivity for two important and R&D-intensive industries: Semiconductors and Pharmaceuticals. I employ two measures of a firm's R&D performance: the number of citations received per patented...

The traditional argument that shorter product cycles favor trade secret over patenting is reviewed. A game theoretic model provides an argument that shorter product cycles can induce firms to file more patent applications. The firms may be trapped in a prisoners' dilemma where all firms would...

Using firm level panel data from the U.S., I explore the relationship between firm size and R&D productivity for two important and R&D-intensive industries: Semiconductors and Pharmaceuticals. I employ two measures of a firm's R&D performance: the number of citations received per patented...

The conventional wisdom is that the formation of patent pools is welfare enhancing when patents are complementary, since the pool avoids a double-marginalization problem associated with independent licensing. This conventional wisdom relies on the effects that pooling has on downstream prices....

This article investigates the role of industry driven coordination mechanisms such as consortia and patent pools in the interplay between formal technological standards and patents. Building upon 64.619 declarations of essential patents to major international Standard Development Organizations...

This paper explores the possibility that a firm may make a credible strategic commitment to high levels of innovation by limiting its horizontal or vertical scope. Specifically, I develop a model in which a firm decides whether to undertake an innovation that affects a system of products, which...

Patent application numbers grow exponentially in many industries, a phenomenon that has been linked to high fragmentation of patent ownership. Contradicting these findings and theoretical arguments, we show that such fragmentation is not a precondition for sudden and strong increases in...

Die Analyse der Patentanmeldungen deutscher Unternehmen am Europäischen Patentamt zeigt: Die Unternehmen lenken ihre Forschungsaktivitäten im Ausland vor allem in die Hochtechnologiebereiche, in denen sie seit langem besonders intensiv forschen. Dies sind die Elektrotechnik, Steuerungstechnik,...

This paper examines the effect of the German co-determination law of 1976 (MitbestG) on the innovative activity of German firms. Co-determination applies to firms with 2000 employees or more. Data from 1971-1976 and 1981-1990 on 148 firms are used to compare the number of patents granted to...