Trading and Enforcing Patent Rights
研究了专利交易如何影响专利权的执行，发现基于商业化比较优势的交易会增加诉讼，而基于执行优势的交易则减少诉讼；利用美国个人专利数据，以资本利得税率为工具变量，识别了交易对诉讼的因果效应。
We study how the market for innovation affects enforcement of patent rights. We show that patent transactions arising from comparative advantages in commercialization increase litigation, but trades driven by advantages in patent enforcement reduce it. Using data on trade and litigation of individually owned patents in the United States, we exploit variation in capital gains tax rates across states as an instrument to identify the causal effect of trade on litigation. We find that taxes strongly affect patent transactions, and that trade reduces litigation on average, but the impact is heterogeneous. Patents with larger potential gains from trade are more likely to change ownership, and the impact depends critically on transaction characteristics.