Runner-Up Patents: Is Monopoly Inevitable?

Runner-up patents: is monopoly inevitable?

Exclusive patents sacrifice product competition to provide firms incentives to innovate. We characterize an alternative mechanism whereby later inventors are allowed to share the patent if they discover within a certain time period of the first inventor. These runner-up patents increase social welfare under very general conditions. Furthermore, we show that the time window during which later in...

Is physician assistant autonomy inevitable?

After a half-century of development, the physician assistant (PA) movement is robust, dynamic, and has moved onto the world stage in ways its creators never imagined.1 One of the recurring topics discussed by PAs, nurse practitioners (NPs), and physicians is the autonomy of PAs and advanced practice registered nurses. A historical connection with organized medicine endeared the PA to physicians...

Homograft valves: is degeneration inevitable?

Since the first successful sub-coronary insertion (Ross 1962), the homograft aortic valve has been the favourite amongst many rypes of mechanicai or biological cardiac vaive repiacements ar the National Heart Hospital. Recent srudies on long rerm patient survivai afrer homograft insertion have reveaied excelient results (Bodnar er ai 1979), surpassed oniy by the autotranspianted puimonary valve...

Change is inevitable--change is constant.

Standard Setting, Patents, and Hold-up

Standard setting raises a variety of antitrust issues. Cooperative standard setting often involves horizontal competitors agreeing on certain specifications of the products they plan to market, implicating core antitrust issues regarding the boundary between cooperation and collusion. The American Bar Association’s Handbook on the Antitrust Aspects of Standards Setting presents legal analysis o...