Publications

Educators

2007
Working Paper

Noncompetes and Inventor Mobility: Specialists, Stars, and the Michigan Experiment

Several scholars have documented the positive consequences of job-hopping by inventors, including knowledge spillovers and agglomeration and the concentration of spinoffs. This work investigates a possible antecedent of inventor mobility: regional variation in the... View Details

Keywords: Contracts; Laws and Statutes; Intellectual Property; Innovation and Invention; Michigan

2008
Working Paper

Applicant and Examiner Citations in U.S. Patents: An Overview and Analysis

By: Juan Alcacer, Michelle Gittelman and Bhaven Sampat

Researchers studying innovation increasingly use indicators based on patent citations. However, it is well known that not all citations originate from applicants—patent examiners contribute to citations listed in issued patents—and that this could complicate... View Details

Keywords: Citations; Innovation and Invention; Patents; Research; United States

Article

Discussion of "Ivory Tower and Industrial Innovation: University-Industry Technology Transfer Before and After the Bayh-Dole Act in the United States" by David C. Mowery, Richard R. Nelson, Bhaven N. Sampat, and Arvids A. Ziedonis

By: Josh Lerner

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Education; Information Technology; Patents; Law; Communication; United States

November 2010
Article

The Litigation of Financial Innovations

By: Josh Lerner

This paper examines the litigation of patents relating to financial products and services. I show that these grants are being litigated at a rate 27 to 39 times greater than that of patents as a whole. The patents being litigated are disproportionately those issued to... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Lawsuits and Litigation; Finance

30 May 2017
News

At Home with History

historic interiors.” In 1993, Jenrette created the Classical American Homes Preservation Trust (CAHPT), a nonprofit that protects examples of 19th century American architecture, landscapes, trails, and decorative arts. Of the 12 historic... View Details

Mar 2012
Article

Reviving Entrepreneurship

New enterprises don't exist in a vacuum: They rise or fall depending on myriad contextual factors, all of them interrelated, and all of them affected by government policy. U.S. lawmakers must carefully consider the effects of interventions in at least 12 areas, ranging... View Details

06 Nov 2012
Op-Ed

Stop Talking About the Weather and Do Something: Three Ways to Finance Sustainable Cities

The wrath of Hurricane Sandy has illuminated a fundamental question: How do we ensure that our cities are resilient in the face of inevitable future disasters? A destroyed city is not a sustainable city. I'm making the case that it's time to stop complaining about... View Details

Keywords: by John Macomber; Construction; Real Estate; Energy; Utilities

17 Jan 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Foreign Competition and Domestic Innovation: Evidence from US Patents

Keywords: by David Autor, David Dorn, Gordon H. Hanson, Pian Shu and Gary Pisano; Manufacturing

11 Mar 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Return Migration and Geography of Innovation in MNEs: A Natural Experiment of On-the-Job Learning of Knowledge Production by Local Workers Reporting to Return Migrants

Keywords: by Prithwiraj Choudhury; Technology

October 2015
Article

Exposed: Venture Capital, Competitor Ties, and Entrepreneurial Innovation

By: Emily Cox Pahnke, Rory McDonald, Dan Wang and Benjamin Hallen

This paper investigates the impact of early relationships on innovation at entrepreneurial firms. Prior research has largely focused on the benefits of network ties, documenting the many advantages that accrue to firms embedded in a rich network of inter-organizational... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Intellectual Property; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

26 Sep 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Technological Leadership (de)Concentration: Causes in ICTE

Keywords: by Yasin Ozcan and Shane Greenstein; Telecommunications

20 Jan 2016
Working Paper Summaries

The Bright Side of Patents

Keywords: by Joan Farre-Mensa, Deepak Hegde & Alexander Ljungqvist; Technology; Manufacturing

May 2024
Article

Financial Innovation in the 21st Century: Evidence from U.S. Patents

By: Josh Lerner, Amit Seru, Nick Short and Yuan Sun

We develop a unique dataset of 24 thousand U.S. finance patents granted over the last two decades to explore the evolution and production of financial innovation. We use machine learning to identify the financial patents and extensively audit the results to ensure... View Details

Keywords: Banking; Investment Banks; Information Technology; Regulation; Patents; Innovation and Invention; Trends

November 2000
Article

Patent Policy Innovations: A Clinical Examination

By: Josh Lerner

Keywords: Patents; Policy; Innovation and Invention

May 2020
Article

Inventor Gender and the Direction of Invention

By: Rembrand Koning, Sampsa Samila and John-Paul Ferguson

We study whether increasing the share of female inventors leads to more biomedical inventions that focus on the needs of women. After accounting for detailed disease-technology, disease-year, and technology-year fixed effects, we find that a 10 percentage point... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Gender; Patents

2015
Working Paper

Financial Patent Quality: Finance Patents After State Street

By: Josh Lerner, Andrew Speen, Mark Baker and Ann Leamon

In the past two decades, patents of inventions related to financial services ("finance patents"), as well as litigation around these patents, have surged. One of the repeated concerns voiced by academics and practitioners alike has been about the quality of these... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Lawsuits and Litigation; Finance

June 2008
Article

Decomposability in Knowledge Structures and Its Impact on the Usefulness of Inventions and Knowledge-base Malleability

By: Sai Yayavaram and Gautam Ahuja

We use patent data from the worldwide semiconductor industry from 1984 to 1994 to study the effect of the structure of organizational knowledge bases, or the patterns of coupling between their elements of technical knowledge, on the usefulness of inventions and... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Semiconductor Industry

October 2002 (Revised July 2009)
Case

Dr. John's Products, Ltd.

By: William A. Sahlman

Describes an entrepreneur's attempts to invent, manufacture, and distribute an inexpensive electric toothbrush. View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Intellectual Property; Product

Educators