In this paper, we study the effect of invention disclosure through patent publication on the market for ideas. We do so by analyzing the effects of the American Inventor’s Protection Act of 1999 (AIPA) — which required US patent applications to be published 18 months after their filing date...

How does the publication of patents affect innovation? To answer this question, we exploit a large-scale natural experiment — the passage of the American Inventor's Protection Act (AIPA) — that accelerated the public disclosure of most patents in the U.S. by two years. After the passage of...

How does the publication of patents affect innovation? We answer this question by exploiting a large-scale natural experiment--the passage of the American Inventor's Protection Act of 1999 (AIPA)--that accelerated the public disclosure of most U.S. patents by two years. We obtain causal...