The EPIP Association is holding its 1st Conference on Policy, Law and Economics of Intellectual Property on September 7 and 8, 2006 in Munich. Researchers interested in the field of intellectual property are encouraged to submit proposals for conference presentations. Contributions will be selected by the Scientific Committee on the basis of full paper submissions.  read more »

The aim of this article is to use the concept of durable good to analyse the market of online music. Our goal is to find theoretical elements explaining the coexistence of selling and renting strategies, and to assess the respective performance of these two types of strategies.  read more »

Debate over the merits of patents versus inducement prizes has tended to ignore the signaling roles of patents, and totally ignores the impact of patent signaling on prize contests. This paper asks: How does patent signaling affect the strategic choices of firms considering entering prize contests?  read more »

In this paper we contend that – contrary to what argued by a vast part of the literature – computer software and, more in general, digital goods (i.e.  read more »

The main aim of this article is to examine the role of governance structures in value creation from patents. We discuss in turn how value can be created when patents are co-owned, used in licensing-in, licensing-out or cross-licensing agreements or contributed to a patent pool.  read more »

Since the 1990s, intellectual property rights have become increasingly important in the telecommunications sector. In particular, the strategic role of patents played in the GSM standard irrevocably changed the IPR strategies within the sector, increasing both the revenues and barriers provided by telecom patents.  read more »

In the IP literature, patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets are considered to be statutory and moral ways of increasing innovations and boosting technological development. For this reason, individual rights to IP have been extended to almost all knowledge intensive sectors, including health care.  read more »

We analyse the question of intellectual property in computer software, showing that both copyright and patents do not fit to the specificities and needs of this industry. The alternative model of Open Source Software, based on a very new juridical concept called GPL "General Public Licence", tends to take a growing importance.  read more »

The economics of regulation has articulated the notions of essential facility and mandated interconnection Their application to the governance of technological knowledge can be fruitful especially when implemented by the adoption of a compensatory liability rule and the parallel reduction in the exclusivity of patents.  read more »

This paper surveys the literature on university patenting.  read more »

The IPR research questions that I believe are emerging, topical and key, are discussed
in the following two sections. They address problems in relation to:
(i) The institutional IPR environment, and
(ii) Corporate and industry IPR practices, when profiting from inventions and
innovations in technology and creative expressions.

Date: March 23^rd 2006

Location: London's Bloomsbury (Venue: Room B01, Clore Management Centre, Torrington Square, Birkbeck College, University of London, Bloomsbury, London).  read more »