ANR Patentes is an Argentinean program that gives grants for patents applications to innovative firms, entrepreneurs and researchers. Throughout the period 2007-2017, 83 projects (out of 195) were funded. Based on secondary sources and a survey conducted to beneficiaries, this study reconstructs...

Family firms are known for their reluctance to invest in research and development. We show that strengthened trade secret protection is associated with higher R&D investment by family firms. More specifically, we show that the association between the strength of trade secret protection through...

Technology standards such as the Wi-Fi or 5G mobile communication standard rely on standard-essential patents (SEPs). Increasing licensing revenues and several disputes between owners and users of SEPs raise the question about the patenting behavior of firms developing standardized technologies....

Increasing evidence indicates that a large share of granted patents are ''undeserved'' because they do not meet the criteria of novelty or non-obviousness. In recent decades, many jurisdictions introduced patent reforms to avoid weak patent applications and improve legal patent quality. In...

This paper shows that the American Inventor's Protection Act, which introduced the disclosure of patent applications after 18 months, i.e. before a grant decision is taken and, hence, before it is known whether the respective technology receives legal protection, is associated with a reduction...

In order to genuinely perform its function in society, scientific research in general and social research in particular must comply with ethical standards, which guarantee that the research results are correct, in accordance with the needs of society, do not harm research subjects and the...

In this paper we replicate most of the stylized facts characterizing the decline in business dynamism in the USA highlighted by Akcigit and Ates (2021) and provide an explanation of their emergence by means of a macroeconomic agent-based model populated by two types of firms: innovators who...

Using a narrative identification of US tax changes over the post-WWII period, we show that corporate income tax cuts foster R&D spending and innovation, leading to a persistent increase in aggregate productivity and output. In contrast, changes in the average personal income tax rate have mostly...

The positive effect of public research on industrial innovations is beyond controversy: public research institutions produce knowledge that is subsequently transferred into product and process innovations by private businesses. Besides this rather passive role in commercializing inventions,...

We study the blocking effect of patents on follow-on innovation by others. We posit that follow-on innovation requires freedom to operate (FTO), which firms typically obtain through a license from the patentee holding the original innovation. Where licensing fails, follow-on innovation is...