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American Law and Economics Review Advance Access published online on April 22, 2008
American Law and Economics Review, doi:10.1093/aler/ahn007
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Law and Economics Association. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Patent–Secret Mix in Complex Product Firms

Elisabetta Ottoz and Franco Cugno

University of Turin

Send correspondence to: Elisabetta Ottoz, Department of economics Cognetti De Martiis, Via Po 10124 Torino, Italy; E-mail: elisabetta.ottoz{at}unito.it.

JEL Classification: K00, L49, O34


  Abstract

Different protection mechanisms may be employed at the same time when an innovation is comprised of separately protectable components. If patents and trade secrets can be mixed in protecting single innovations, a strengthening in patent breadth may induce a lower level of patenting, as innovators are more prone to rely on secrecy.

We thank James Bessen, Nisvan Erkal, Massimiliano Granieri, Marco Ricolfi, Steven Shavell, an anonymous referee, and participants at the 2007 ISLE annual conference for useful comments and suggestions. The usual caveat applies.


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