Financing constraints have been discussed as a major obstacle to innovation. Small and mediumsized enterprises and start-ups are particularly concerned by such impediments. Venture capital has emerged as a partial solution in some countries, but is only available for start-up firms with major...

Germany is one of few countries in which the monetary compensation for inventors is notonly determined by negotiations between employer and employee-inventor, but also byrelatively precise legal provisions. In this paper, we describe the characteristics of the GermanEmployees’ Inventions Act...

This paper provides new information, not available from other sources, on the characteristics ofthe innovation process in Europe, and on the economic use and value of European patents. Ourdata are drawn from a survey (PatVal-EU, or PatVal for short) of 9,017 patents granted by theEuropean Patent...

This paper analyzes firms’ choices regarding the geographic scope of patentprotection within the European patent system. We develop an econometric modelat the patent level to quantify the impact of office fees and translation costs onfirms’ decision to validate a patent in a particular...

This paper investigates how patent applications and grants held by new ventures improve their abilityto attract venture capital (VC) financing. We argue that investors are faced with considerable uncertaintyand therefore rely on patents as signals when trying to assess the prospects of potential...