Publications

Educators

March 2011
Article

To Join or Not to Join: Examining Patent Pool Participation and Rent Sharing Rules

By: Josh Lerner and Anne Layne-Farrar

In recognition that participation in modern patent pools is voluntary, we present empirical evidence on participation rates and the factors that drive the decision to join a pool, including the profit sharing rules adopted by the pool's founders. In most participation... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Alliances; Vertical Integration; Standards

1996
Chapter

Trends in University Patenting 1965-1992

By: Rebecca M. Henderson, Adam Jaffe and Manuel Trajtenberg

Keywords: History; Patents; Higher Education; Trends; Non-Governmental Organizations; Education Industry

January 1993 (Revised April 1995)
Case

Fog of Business, The

In the mid-1980s, the Holland Sweetener Co. (HSC) was facing the decision whether to enter the European and Canadian aspartame markets, following the ending of NutraSweet's patents there. A major question facing HSC was whether NutraSweet would respond to entry in an... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Patents; Competition; Market Entry and Exit; Food and Beverage Industry; Canada; United States; Europe

Educators

2021
Working Paper

Winner Takes All? Tech Clusters, Population Centers, and the Spatial Transformation of U.S. Invention

By: Brad Chattergoon and William R. Kerr

U.S. invention has become increasingly concentrated around major tech centers since the 1970s, with implications for how much cities across the country share in concomitant local benefits. Is invention becoming a winner-takes-all race? We explore the rising spatial... View Details

Keywords: Invention; Innovation; Artificial Intelligence; Clusters; Agglomeration; Innovation and Invention; Patents; Applications and Software; Industry Clusters; United States

Web

Terms of Use - HBS Online

SERVICES: 1. Content that defames, harasses, discriminates against, harms or threatens others; 2. Content that discusses illegal activities, with the intent to commit them; 3. Content that infringes or misappropriates intellectual View Details

01 Sep 2008
News

Faculty Research Online

protecting and monetizing their intellectual property. In a Q&A, Professor Josh Lerner discusses current trends in IP, including the rise of patent pools. See http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5925.html. Rethinking Retirement Planning Many of us... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

Web

Terms of Use | HBS Online

KINDS OF CONTENT (“PROHIBITED CONTENT”) ARE STRICTLY PROHIBITED ON THE SERVICES: Content that defames, harasses, discriminates against, harms or threatens others; Content that discusses illegal activities, with the intent to commit them; Content that infringes or... View Details

15 Nov 2013
News

Helping Bright Ideas Shine Again

Côme Laguë by Robert S. Benchley Côme Laguë (MBA 1993) has no respect for firms he calls "patent trolls"—holding companies that buy up and bank the intellectual property of closed businesses solely for the... View Details

Keywords: Robert S. Benchley

April–May 2021
Article

Labor Mobility and Antitakeover Provisions

By: Aiyesha Dey and Joshua White

How do firms protect their human capital? We test whether firms facing an increased threat of being acquired strengthen their antitakeover provisions (ATPs) in order to bond with their employees. We use the adoption of the Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine (IDD) by U.S.... View Details

Keywords: Labor Mobility; Antitakeover Provisions; Trade Secrets; Implicit Contracting; Employee Bonding; Corporate Governance; Acquisition; Human Capital; Strategy; Innovation and Invention; Intellectual Property; Safety

Spring 2014
Article

Ex-Ante Agreements in Standard Setting and Patent Pool Formation

By: Gaston Llanes and Joaquin Poblete

We present a model of standard setting and patent-pool formation. We study the effects of alternative standard-setting and pool-formation rules on technology choice, prices, and welfare. We find three main results. First, we show that allowing patent pools may reduce... View Details

Keywords: Standard Setting; Patent Pools; Royalty Stacking; Ex-ante Agreements; Coalition Formation; Motivation and Incentives; Patents; Agreements and Arrangements; Standards

April 2011
Article

Private Equity and Long-Run Investment: The Case of Innovation

By: Josh Lerner, Morten Sorensen and Per Stromberg

A long-standing controversy is whether LBOs relieve managers from short-term pressures of dispersed shareholders, or whether LBO funds themselves are driven by short-term profit motives and sacrifice long-term growth to boost short-term performance. We investigate 495... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Private Equity; Leveraged Buyouts; Investment; Innovation and Invention

February 2006 (Revised October 2006)
Case

Veridian: Putting a Value on Values

By: Rakesh Khurana, Joel Podolny and Jaan Margus Elias

David Langstaff, the CEO of Veridian, a defense company, struggles with the decision of selling the company. Langstaff has concerned himself with inculcalating his organization with the values necessary for superior achievement over the long term. But as a fiduciary,... View Details

Keywords: Cash; Corporate Governance; Financial Markets; Law; Leadership; Patents; Values and Beliefs; Service Industry; Aerospace Industry

Educators

13 Dec 2016
First Look

December 13, 2016

Property Rights Protection, Ownership, and Innovation: Evidence from China By: Fang, Lily, Josh Lerner, and Chaopeng Wu Abstract—Using a difference-in-difference approach, we study how intellectual View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

01 Sep 2024
News

Fueling Innovation

(D^3), based at HBS, is a pioneering hub dedicated to the study of transformative technologies, while the Institute for Business in Global Society (BiGS) serves as an intellectual center that builds on the... View Details

08 Jul 2014
First Look

First Look: July 8

provides an insider's perspective on what has made it so effective. Publisher's link: http://hbr.org/2014/07/sustainability-in-the-boardroom/ar/1 Working Papers Modularity and Intellectual Property... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

07 Apr 2003
Research & Ideas

Three Steps for Crisis Prevention

companies feared that the precedent set by the South African move would undermine their control over valuable intellectual property in the developing world. But the suit sparked international outrage against... View Details

Keywords: by Michael D. Watkins & Max H. Bazerman

2023
Working Paper

Black-box Training Data Identification in GANs via Detector Networks

By: Lukman Olagoke, Salil Vadhan and Seth Neel

Since their inception Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) have been popular generative models across images, audio, video, and tabular data. In this paper we study whether given access to a trained GAN, as well as fresh samples from the underlying distribution, if... View Details

Keywords: Cybersecurity; Copyright; AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science

April 2020
Article

Technological Leadership (de)Concentration: Causes in Information and Communication Technology Equipment

By: Yasin Ozcan and Shane Greenstein

Using patent data from 1976 to 2010 as indicators of inventive activity, we determine the concentration level of where inventive ideas originate and then examine how and why those concentrations change over time. The analysis finds pervasive deconcentration in every... View Details

Keywords: Deconcentration; Technological Innovation; Innovation Leadership; Patents; Market Entry and Exit; Telecommunications Industry