We study how fragmentation of patent rights ('patent thickets') and the formation of the Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affected the duration of patent disputes, and thus the speed of technology diffusion through licensing. We develop a model of patent litigation which predicts...

CEP Discussion Paper No 889 August 2008 Patent Thickets and the Market for Innovation: Evidence from Settlement of Patent Disputes Alberto Galasso and Mark Schankerman Abstract We study how fragmentation of patent rights (‘patent thickets’) and the formation of the...

We study the interplay between transportation infrastructure, knowledge flows, and innovation. Exploiting historical data on planned portions of the interstate highway system, railroads, and exploration routes as sources of exogenous variation, we estimate the effect of U.S. interstate highways...