Patents and Cumulative Innovation:Causal Evidence from the Courts
Galasso, Alberto : Mark Schankerman
WP#13-16 Hitotsubashi University IIR (2013/08/20)
Cumulative innovation is central to economic growth. Do patent rights facilitate or impede such follow-on innovation? This paper studies the causal effect of removing patent protection through court invalidation on subsequent research related to the focal patent, as measured by later citations. We exploit random allocation of judges a…