Publications

September 2002 (Revised May 2003)
Case

X-IT and Kidde (A)

By: Constance E. Bagley and David Lane

Involves a start-up, X-IT Products LLC, whose founders had designed an innovative, lightweight, and easy-to-use--yet strong--escape ladder. After X-IT had filed a patent application for the ladder in the United States, X-IT was approached by Kidde PLC, one of the... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Negotiation Process; Agreements and Arrangements; Ethics; Lawsuits and Litigation; Business Startups; Consumer Products Industry

Web

Tough Tech Ventures - Course Catalog

incorporating intellectual property concerns and “technoeconomic” forecasting Articulate paths to market and business models while accounting for tough tech value chains and competition Explore and negotiate... View Details

2015
Chapter

Information Technology and the Distribution of Inventive Activity

By: Chris Forman, Avi Goldfarb and Shane Greenstein

We examine the relationship between the diffusion of advanced Internet technology and the geographic concentration of invention, as measured by patents. First, we show that patenting became more concentrated from the early 1990s to the early 2000s and, similarly, that... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Geographic Location; Internet and the Web; Innovation and Invention

February 2007
Case

Update: The Music Industry in 2006

By: John R. Wells and Elizabeth Raabe

The global recorded music industry was undergoing a major transition in 2006. Sales had been declining for a decade, and consumers were buying music in new formats and through different distribution channels. CD sales still accounted for the majority of revenues, but... View Details

Keywords: History; Arts; Music Entertainment; Intellectual Property; Market Timing; Performance Evaluation; Trends; Music Industry

01 Dec 2018
News

Collaborative Cures

diagnostics, consumer, and devices, collectively raising more than $150 million in funding. To further catalyze these new science-based businesses, the program provides fellows professional development in areas such as startup strategy, design thinking, View Details

August 2018
Article

Growth Through Heterogeneous Innovations

By: Ufuk Akcigit and William R. Kerr

We build a tractable growth model where multi-product incumbents invest in internal innovations to improve their existing products, while new entrants and incumbents invest in external innovations to acquire new product lines. External and internal innovations generate... View Details

Keywords: Endogenous Growth; Innovation; Citations; Scientists; Entrepreneurs; External; Internal; Patents; Innovation Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Economic Growth; Research and Development; Science

December 2011
Article

Did R&D Firms Used to Patent? Evidence from the First Innovation Surveys

By: Tom Nicholas

Matching 2,777 R&D firms in surveys conducted by the National Research Council between 1921 and 1938 with U.S. patents reveals that 59 percent of all firms and 88 percent of publicly-traded firms patented. These shares are much higher than those observed for modern R&D... View Details

Keywords: Research and Development; Patents; Surveys; Innovation and Invention; Geographic Location; United States

September 2010
Teaching Note

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals: Building Value from the IP Estate (TN)

By: Willy C. Shih

Teaching Note for 611009. View Details

Keywords: Value; Patents; Corporate Strategy; Competition; Research and Development; Lawsuits and Litigation; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

2008
Working Paper

The Agglomeration of U.S. Ethnic Inventors

By: William R. Kerr

The ethnic composition of US inventors is undergoing a significant transformation—with deep impacts for the overall agglomeration of US innovation. This study applies an ethnic-name database to individual US patent records to explore these trends with greater detail.... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Geographic Location; Patents; Ethnicity; City; Innovation and Invention; United States

SSRN

Web

The Coming of Managerial Capitalism - Course Catalog

of the development of entrepreneurship, modern management, business, technology and finance; to examine other institutions that have affected these areas such as governments, unions, and intellectual View Details

13 Sep 2016
First Look

September 13, 2016

of non-practicing entities (NPEs) in the intellectual property space. Our model shows that NPE litigation can reduce infringement and support small inventors. However, the model also shows that as NPEs... View Details

03 Dec 2001
Research & Ideas

Healthcare Conference Looks At Ailing Industry

Integration, Not Intellectual Property The "great embarrassment" of twentieth-century medicine, despite its many strides, is that most therapeutics were directed at symptoms, not causes, said Eric... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Health

January 2011 (Revised January 2011)
Case

Marvel Enterprises, Inc. (Abridged)

By: Anita Elberse

The management team of Marvel Enterprises, known for its universe of superhero characters that includes Spider-Man, the Hulk, and X-Men, must reevaluate its marketing strategy. In June 2004, only six years after the company emerged from bankruptcy, Marvel has amassed a... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Intellectual Property; Rights; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

June 2007 (Revised April 2009)
Case

Opening Pandora's Box

By: Willy C. Shih, Stephen P. Kaufman, Melissa Marie Blakeley and Marissa Wairy Dent

Pandora.com provided a highly customizable online radio service tailored to listeners' musical preferences and had registered explosive growth since its September 2005 launch. But proposed changes in royalty rates threatened to kill off many Internet radio sites,... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Entrepreneurship; Disruptive Innovation; Intellectual Property; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Operations; Internet; Media and Broadcasting Industry

fall 2007
Article

The Design of Patent Pools: The Determinants of Licensing Rules

By: Josh Lerner, Marcin Strojwas and Jean Tirole

Patent pools are an important but little-studied economic institution. In this paper, we first make a set of predictions about the licensing terms associated with patent pools. The theoretical framework predicts that (a) pools consisting of complementary patents are... View Details

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Patents; Rights

Web

1.17 Field Based Learning / Independent Projects | MBA

disclosed as a result of the project. For example, if a project results in the development of an HBS case study, the standard HBS case release process should be followed. Protection of Intellectual Property... View Details

20 Jul 2009
Research & Ideas

Markets or Communities? The Best Ways to Manage Outside Innovation

benefits of learning) from that attempt. Finally, external innovation appears to be fast—solutions arrive quite quickly and can often exceed the capacity of the seeker. Q: And potential downsides? A: The main concerns about working with outside innovators relate to... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

August 2008 (Revised May 2009)
Background Note

International Enforcement of U.S. Patents

By: Robert C. Pozen and Jordan Hirsch

A company that owns a U.S. patent can enforce its patent protections in three ways: by filing a lawsuit in U.S. federal district court, by bringing action in the International Trade Commission, or through the World Trade Organization. This note discusses the pros and... View Details

Keywords: International Relations; Patents; Courts and Trials; Lawsuits and Litigation; Rights

September 2006 (Revised August 2007)
Case

Warner Bros. and BitTorrent

Involves the copyright issues associated with Bram Cohen's revolutionary program BitTorrent, which makes it possible to transfer very large files, such as movies, at a high speed over the Internet. The program, which is available for free over the Internet, is used for... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Copyright; Lawfulness; Distribution; Internet and the Web; Motion Pictures and Video Industry