While the European Parliament overwhelmingly rejected in 2005 the directive proposal on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions, the subject remains very controversial, particularly due to the fact that the European Patent Office has maintained its practice of granting patents on...

Cloud computing services are transforming business and government at an ever-increasing rate. However, the associated security risk and low customization capability create challenges for the penetration of cloud services. In an environment where the negative network security externalities are...

Scholars have spilled much ink questioning patent quality. Complaints encompass concern about incoming applications, examination by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”), and the USPTO’s ultimate output. The literature and some empirical data also suggest, however, that...

xsmle is a new command for spatial analysis using Stata. We consider the quasi-maximum likelihood estimation of a wide set of both fi xed- and random- eff ects spatial models for balanced panel data. Of special note is that xsmle allows to handle unbalanced panels thanks to its full...

This paper studies pricing strategies for a commercial software provider who faces competition from both a free-of-charge open-source software substitute and illegal copies of its own product. When network externalities are present, the commercial software provider may choose to set a price...

A qualitative, grounded theory research was conducted to explore and deepen the understanding of how middle and low level managers can initialize and manage information technology (IT) outsourcing projects. The study involved 17 managers and leaders working in Ukraine in offshore software...

The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate an instrument/scale to assess the performance of Indian software professionals (SPs). Data were collected from 441 software and senior software engineers from eight Indian software firms. The team leaders assessed the performance of software...

Malawi and other countries do not provide quarterly data on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and other economic variables. The paper serves to address this problem by providing the reader with knowledge on how to carry out the interpolation of quarterly data from yearly aggregates

This essay introduces to the legal community a fascinating, decreasingly farfetched technological possibility that the Bitcoin software promotes, and it offers suggestions for the how the law might interact with that possibility. In short, the Bitcoin technology allows autonomously operating...