Losing the lead: the patenting decision in the light of the disclosure requirement |
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Authors: | Alexandra K Zaby |
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Institution: | 1. Universit?t Tübingen , Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakult?t, Tübingen, Germany alexandra.zaby@uni-tuebingen.de |
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Abstract: | Empirical findings state that the disclosure requirement might be a reason for firms to rely on secrecy rather than patents to protect their inventions. We choose a dynamic framework in which we can explicitly analyze the patenting decision reflecting the tradeoff between a positive protective effect and a negative effect due to the required disclosure of the protected invention. In spite of a patent, the inventor's rival may still enter the market with a non-infringing product. Measuring the technological lead of the inventor by a time advantage he has compared with his rival, we show that if his headstart exceeds a critical threshold, he will not patent and rather rely on secrecy. |
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Keywords: | patenting decision secrecy disclosure requirement patent height vertical product differentiation |
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