This paper studies the determinants of patent suits and settlements during 1978-99 by linking information from the U.S. patent office, the federal courts, and industry sources. We find that litigation risk is much higher for patents that are owned by individuals and firms with small patent...

We study the impact of private ownership, incentive pay, and local development objectives on university licensing performance. We develop and test a simple contracting model of technology-licensing offices using new survey information together with panel data on U.S. universities for 1995-99. We...

This article empirically examines the patenting behavior of new biotechnology firms that have different litigation costs. I show that firms with high litigation costs are less likely to patent in subclasses with many other awards, particularly those of firms with low litigation costs. This...

In this paper we investigate potential conflicts of interest in the issuance of public securities in a setting analogous to a universal bank, that is, the underwriting of initial public offerings by investment banks that hold equity in a firm through a venture capital subsidiary. We contrast two...

This paper examines the economic role of preliminary injunctions in legal disputes. We present a model in which differences in financing costs drive the use of preliminary injunction and explore the implications of this legal remedy for ex post efficiency and ex ante incentives. Controlling for...

This paper examines the litigation of patents relating to financial products and services. I show that these grants are being litigated at a rate 27–39 times greater than that of patents as a whole. The patents being litigated are disproportionately those issued to individuals and to smaller,...