The “anti-circumvention” provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”), codified in section 1201 of the Copyright Act, have not been used as Congress envisioned. The law was ostensibly intended [...]
We exploit a change in eligibility rules for the Canadian Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SRED) tax credit to gain insight on how tax credits impact small-firm R&D expenditures. After [...]
With roughly 400,000 software patents in force today it has become virtually impossible, as a practical matter, for entrepreneurs and engineers to avoid stepping on some purported inventor’s toes, no [...]
We investigate whether private research investments are distorted away from long-term projects. Our theoretical model highlights two potential sources of this distortion: short-termism and the fixed patent term. Our empirical [...]
A well-developed theoretical literature — dating back at least to Nordhaus (1969) — has analyzed optimal patent policy design. We re-present the core trade-off of the Nordhaus model and highlight [...]
A strong tradition in economic history, which primarily relies on qualitative evidence and statistical correlations, has emphasized the importance of patents as a primary driver of innovation. Recent improvements in [...]
We present evidence of a causal impact of research and development (R&D) tax incentives on innovation. We exploit a change in the asset-based size thresholds for eligibility for R&D tax [...]
We study the causal impact of patent invalidation on subsequent innovation and exit by the patent holder. The analysis is based on patent litigation at the U.S. Court of Appeals [...]
In 1946, the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) set forth the basics for “formal” adjudication, with the classic account requiring an administrative law judge to make the initial determination and the [...]
Reform of the Hatch–Waxman generic drug framework is in the air. Scholars, consumer advocacy groups, regulated industry, and policymakers are engaged in heated debate about perceived shortcomings in the scheme, [...]