The open source movement evolved in the one industrial context where openness is not required by intellectual property law.1 Nevertheless, openness itself cannot be the driving force behind the open source movement. This is because openness can be achieved in many ways other than the GPL, for...

JEL Classifications: L41, K21 Abstract: When infringement of a patent dissipates profit relative to the licensing agreement that would otherwise occur, damages under the lost-profit rule deter infringement, and otherwise not. We develop this point in a general model and give two examples....

We investigate how liability rules and property rules affect the incentives to invest in research tools. We argue that it is hard to deter infringement under any of the enforcement regimes available. However, counterintuitively, a credible threat of infringement can actually be beneficial to the...

There is considerable evidence that males are more prone to take risks than females. This difference has implications for rates of promotion in hierarchies where promotion is based on random signals of ability. I explore the promotion consequences of three types of performance standards:...

Intellectual property treaties have two main types of provisions: national treatment of foreign inventors, and harmonization of protections. I characterize the circumstances in which countries would want to treat foreign inventors the same as national inventors. I then argue that national...

We investigate optimal rewards in an R&D model where substitute ideas for innovation arrive to random recipients at random times. By foregoing investment in a current idea, society as a whole preserves an option to invest in a better idea for the same market niche, but with delay. Because...

From the antitrust case law that governs restrictions on patent licenses, we derive three unifying principles: just reward, profit neutrality and minimalism. The just-reward principle holds that the patentholder's profits should be earned, if at all, from the social value created by his...

If promotion in a hierarchy is based on a random signal of ability, rates of promotion are affected by risk-taking. Further, the statistical properties of the surviving populations of risk-takers and non-risk-takers will be different, and will be changing throughout the hierarchy. I define...

Our objective in this paper is to review what economists have said about incentive schemes to promote R&D, including intellectual property. While we focus on environments in which other forms of protection are not available, we note that other protections can obviate the need for any formal...