Once a new technology has been invented, there is a credible threat of imitation when patents are long and imitation cost is low. When imitation is credible, the innovator has an incentive to postpone technology adoption for relatively high cost of imitation. The possibility of licensing...

This paper provides a theoretical analysis of product and process patent regimes in the context of North-South trade. For some parametric configurations, we show that Northern government would favor the product patent regime in the South, although the Northern firm would prefer the process...

Once a new technology has been invented, there is a credible threat of imitation when patent protection is strong and imitation cost is low. Within the area of credible imitation, the innovator has an incentive to postpone technology adoption when the cost of imitation is relatively high. The...

This paper shows the possibility of higher welfare under Cournot competitionin an asymmetric cost duopoly when the firms have the option for technology licensing.We find that if there is licensing with up-front fixed-fee, welfare is higher under Cournotcompetition compared to Bertrand...

An important provision in each of the final judgments in the government's Microsoft antitrust case requires Microsoft "make available" to software developers the communications protocols that Windows client operating systems use to interoperate "natively" (that is, without adding software) with...

An important provision in each of the final judgments in the government's Microsoft antitrust case requires Microsoft "make available" to software developers the communications protocols that Windows client operating systems use to interoperate "natively" (that is, without adding software) with...

In 2004, the European Commission held that Microsoft had abused its dominant position under Article 82 of the European Treaty by, among other actions, refusing Sun Microsystems' request for information Sun needed to interoperate with Windows workgroup server products. The EC ordered Microsoft to...

Consider a research lab that owns a patent on a new technology but cannot develop a marketable final product based on the new technology. There are two downstream firms that might successfully develop the new product. Each of these downstream firms could with a certain probability be successful...

Consider a research lab that owns a patent on a new technology but cannot develop a marketable final product based on the new technology. There are two downstream firms that might successfully develop the new product. If the downstream firms' benefits from being the sole supplier of the new...