A low-quality patent system threatens to slow the pace of technological progress. Concerns about low patent quality are supported by estimates from litigation studies suggesting that the majority of patents granted by the U.S. patent office should not have been issued. This paper proposes a new...

In this paper we consider why firms sometimes choose an external development path for their own inventions, despite the costs of contracting and the risks of opportunistic behaviour and expropriation. We model the probability that firms adopt an external development strategy using survey data...

We use data from 3000 academic scientists to estimate the effects of other parties’ patents on the academics’ research. Nearly half of all scientists report that their choice of research projects has been affected by the presence of other parties’ patents. We find that transaction costs...