We investigate whether patents that are jointly held by legally independent companies help sustain product-market collusion. We use a simple model of repeated interactions to show that joint patents can serve collusive purposes. Our model generates two testable predictions: when joint patents...

This paper investigates the patent licensing networks formed by competing firms. Assuming that licensing agreements can involve the payment of fixed fees only and that firms compete à la Cournot, we show that the complete network is always bilaterally efficient and that the monopoly network is...

We study bilateral cross-licensing agreements among N( 2) firms that engage in competition after the licensing phase. It is shown that the most collusive cross- licensing royalty, i.e. the one that allows the industry to achieve the monopoly pro.t, is sustainable as the outcome of bilaterally...

This paper investigates the choice of an intellectual protection regime for a process innovation. We set up a multi-stage model in which choosing between patent and trade secrecy is affected by three parameters: the patent strength defined as the probability that the right is upheld by the...