Technological breakthroughs occasionally set off floods of inventions and associated patents. The decline of the business method exception to patentability is likely to increase the frequency of patent floods. Future technological breakthroughs might now cause two different patent floods: a...

Using our own data on Artificial Intelligence publications merged with Burning Glass vacancy data for 2007-2019, we investigate whether online vacancies for jobs requiring AI skills grow more slowly in U.S. locations farther from pre-2007 AI innovation hotspots. We find that a commuting zone...

How could such industries as software, semiconductors, and computers have been so innovative despite historically weak patent protection? We argue that if innovation is both sequential and complementary--as it certainly has been in those industries--competition can increase firms' future profits...

When innovation is cumulative, early patentees can hold up later innovators. Under complete information, licensing before R&D avoids holdup. But when development costs are private information, ex ante licensing may only occur in regimes with sub-optimal patent policy