We show that when the researcher’s (observable but not contractible) contribution to innovation is crucial, a covenant not to compete (CNC) reduces effort and profits under both spot and relational contracts. Having no CNC allows the researcher to leave for a rival. This alleviates a commitment problem by forcing the firm to reward a successful researcher. However, if the firm’s R&D investment ...

Exchange of patents between firms increasingly influence competition. Such cross-licensing deals have traditionally raised antitrust concerns, since they can be used to control market shares and prices, and create entry barriers. We argue that cross-licensing is a device to establish multimarket contact and is likely to raise antitrust concerns only in so far as multimarket contact does. Since ...

Several recent technological standards were accompanied by patent pools—arrangements to license relevant intellectual property as a package. A key distinction made by regulators—between patents essential to a standard and patents with substitutes—has not been addressed in the theoretical literature. I show that pools of essential patents are always welfare increasing, while pools which include ...

US education policy encourages the use of computers and the Internet at both the college level and the K-12 level. As a consequence, students have had better access to technologies to illicitly share copyrighted music and divert sales from the traditional music store retail channel. Using a panel of counties over the 1994-2004 period, I find evidence that the number of music stores fell when K-...

This paper examines the effects of exchange rates on R&D activities and international strategy choices of the oligopolies. We develop a three-stage game-theoretic model in which two firms located in two different countries (a developing and a developed one) choose the mode of foreign expansion in the first stage. They decide how much to spend on R&D, and how much to sell in domestic and foreign...

This paper considers policy towards the exercise of market power by holders of intellectual property rights (IPRs). In particular, we ask whether intellectual property protection should extend to price discrimination. To answer this question, we present a very simple model of IPRs, designed to make clear the trade-offs that face government policy makers in designing IPRs. We find that there are...

This article analyses the advantages and disadvantages of the different patent systems that coexist in Europe and examines the recently launched proposal for a European Council Regulation on the Community patent in light of the shortcoming of the existing systems. The European Commission has sought the coexistent of the Community, European and national patent systems. This option does not elimi...

The success of global climate policies over the coming decades depends on the diffusion of ’green’ technologies. This requires that international environmental agreements (IEAs) and trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPs) interact productively. Using a simple and tractable model, we highlight the strategic reduction in abatement commitments on account of a hold-up effect. In anticipa...

We study the case where parallel trade (PT) stems from government price controls in a foreign country. We remove the presumption that PT blunts dynamic efficiency if the government has partial commitment ability. We model the R&D firm’s option to serve the foreign country, and find that PT may improve quality, depending on preferences for quality. Improving quality may be a sufficient condition...

This study examines optimal public policy in a product cycle model where R&D firms innovate and imitate and households face nondiversifiable risk. The government controls product cycles by two policy instruments: patent length, i.e. the expected time an innovation is imitated, and patent width, i.e. the innovator’s profit after a successful imitation relative to that before. The main results ar...