Venture Capitalists and the Patenting of Innovations
模型分析了知情风险投资家如何通过专利信号向收购方传递创新价值，发现专利要求收紧会提升风险投资家支持创业者的意愿并激励创新。
We model patent‐signaling by informed venture capitalists to incumbent acquirers of developed innovations. We show that, to signal, venture capitalists develop more patents with higher impact than incumbents would. A tightening of patenting requirements by the patent offices, such as an increase in the required inventive step, increases the pool of unprotected early‐stage ideas, which venture capitalists are better at judging than incumbents, and decreases the number and breadth of patented claims needed to separate highly valuable from less valuable innovations. Consequently, such a tightening would make venture capitalists more likely to back entrepreneurs and increase entrepreneurial incentives to innovate.