Runner-up patents: is monopoly inevitable?

Emeric Henry

SciencePo Working papers Main from HAL

Abstract: 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 inventors can share the patent should become a new policy tool at the disposal of the designer. This instrument will be used in a socially optimal mix with the breadth and length of the patent and could allow sorting between more or less efficient firms.

Date: 2010
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Published in Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 2010, 112 (2), pp.417-441. ⟨10.1111/j.1467-9442.2010.01603.x⟩

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Related works:
Working Paper: Runner-Up Patents: Is Monopoly Inevitable? (2022)
Journal Article: Runner‐up Patents: Is Monopoly Inevitable? (2010)
Working Paper: Runner-up patents: is monopoly inevitable? (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-01023778

DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9442.2010.01603.x

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