While patent systems have been widely used both historically and internationally, there is nonetheless a tremendous amount of controversy over whether patent systems – in practice – improve the alignment between private returns and social contributions. In this paper, I describe three...

Although patent systems have been widely used both historically and internationally, there is nonetheless a tremendous amount of controversy over whether patent systems, in practice, improve the alignment between private returns and social contributions. In this article, I describe three...

This paper analyzes how patent-induced shocks to labor productivity propagate into worker compensation using a new linkage of US patent applications to US business and worker tax records. We infer the causal effects of patent allowances by comparing firms whose patent applications were initially...

Patents award innovators a fixed period of market exclusivity, e.g., 20 years in the United States. Yet, since in many industries firms file patents at the time of discovery (“invention”) rather than first sale (“commercialization”), effective patent terms vary: inventions that...

This paper introduces a newly digitized, open-access version of the Food and Drug Administration’s “Orange Book”—a linkage between approved small-molecule drugs and the patents that protect them. The Orange Book also reports any applicable regulatory exclusivity that prevents competitive...