Using firm-level data for 28 transition countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia over the 2002–2009 period, this paper analyzes whether differences in the functioning of intellectual property rights (IPRs) systems—measured along various dimensions, including de facto enforcement and de...

Impactful inventions carry forward combinations of components which depart from common practices: they remove restrictions in the knowledge space by breaking conventional rules. In this paper we present a novel measure of the extent to which combinations in the inventive process conform to...

The Innovation Act was introduced by the French government in 1999, with the aim of encouraging academic institutions to protect and commercialize their scientists’ inventions. We explore the effects of the Act on the distribution of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) over academic...

In the 1990s, patenting schemes changed in many respects: upcoming new technologies accelerated the shift from price competition towards competition based on technical inventions, a worldwide surge in patenting took place, and the patent thicket arose as a consequence of strategic patenting....