This papcr uses a new firm panel data set to explore the relationship between R&D and productivity in German manufacturing firms for the period from 1979 to 1989. The results confirm the view that K&D is an important determinant of productivity growth. In the cross-section, the elasticity of...

Germany is one of few countries in which the monetary compensation for inventors is not only determined by negotiations between employer and employee-inventor, but also by relatively precise legal provisions. In this paper, we describe the characteristics of the German Employees’ Inventions...

In this paper the authors explore the incentives that usersmight have to freely reveal their proprietary innovations. They develop agame-theoretic model to explore the effect of these incentives on users´ decisions to reveal or hide their proprietary information.

We analyze the impact of the probabilistic nature of patents on the functioning of Germany's bifurcated patent litigation system where infringement and validity of a patent are decided independently by different courts. We show that bifurcation creates situations in which a patent is held...

Based on a survey of the inventors of 9,017 European patented inventions, this paper provides new information about the characteristics of European inventors, the sources of their knowledge, the importance of formal and informal collaborations, the motivations to invent, and the actual use and...