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The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights: A Survey of the Empirical Literature

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The Economics and Econometrics of Innovation

Abstract

This paper examines several recent avenues of empirical research into the enforcement of intellectual property rights. To frame these issues, we start with a stylized model of the patent litigation process. The bulk of the paper is devoted to linking the empirical literature on patent litigation to the parameters of this model. The four major areas we consider are (i) how the propensity to litigate patents varies with the expected benefits of litigation, (ii) the ways in which the cost of litigation affects the willingness to enforce patents, (iii) how the cost of enforcing patents changes the private value of patent rights, and (iv) the impact of intellectual property litigation on the innovation process itself.

We would like to thank Joel Waldfogel and an anonymous referee for useful comments on an earlier draft.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. NBER, Yale University, USA

    Jean O. Lanjouw

  2. NBER, Havard Business School, USA

    Josh Lerner

Authors
  1. Jean O. Lanjouw
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  2. Josh Lerner
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© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Lanjouw, J.O., Lerner, J. (2000). The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights: A Survey of the Empirical Literature. In: The Economics and Econometrics of Innovation. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-3194-1_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-3194-1_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-4971-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-3194-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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