Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/77974 
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
ZEW Discussion Papers No. 13-043
Publisher: 
Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW), Mannheim
Abstract: 
Innovators seek to protect their intellectual assets by patenting them, at the same time trying to avoid any disclosure of critical knowledge. Given that a patent specification has to include a clear description of the patented matter so that anybody skilled in the art is enabled to reproduce the invention, the non-disclosure intention seems contradictory to patent law. This paper provides a model identifying the incentives for firms to deliberately obscure their inventive knowledge in a patent specification.
Subjects: 
patent specification
disclosure requirement
strategic firm behavior
fuzzy patents
JEL: 
O31
O34
L24
D21
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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