Intellectual Property and the Prisoner’s Dilemma: A Game Theory Justification of Copyrights, Patents, and Trade Secrets

In this article, I will offer an argument for the protection of intellectual property based on individual self-interest and prudence. In large part, this argument will parallel considerations that arise in a prisoner’s dilemma game. In brief, allowing content to be unprotected in terms of free access leads to a sub-optimal outcome where creation and innovation are suppressed. Adopting the institutions of copyright, patent, and trade secret is one way to avoid these sub-optimal results

Patents vs Trade Secrets: Knowledge Licensing and Spillover

We develop a model of two-stage cumulative research and development (R&D), in which one Research Unit (RU) with an innovative idea bargains to license her nonverifiable interim knowledge exclusively to one of two competing Development Units (DUs) via one of two alternative modes: an Open sale after patenting this knowledge, or a Closed sale in which precluding further disclosure to a competing DU requires the RU to hold a stake in the licensed DU’s post-invention revenues. Both modes lead to partial leakage of RU’s knowledge from its description, to the licensed DU alone in a closed sale, and to both DUs in an open sale. The open sale is socially optimal; yet the contracting parties choose the closed sale whenever the interim knowledge is more valuable and leakage is sufficiently high. If the extent of leakage is lower, more RUs choose open sales, generating a non-monotonic relationship between the strength of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and aggregate R&D expenditures and the overall likelihood of development by either DU.

P2PEdge : A Decentralised, Scalable P2P Architecture for Energy Trading in Real-Time

Author Contributions: Conceptualization, J.K., D.H.-S., R.N.A., B.S. and K.M.; Formal analysis, J.K., D.H.-S. and B.S.; Investigation, J.K.; Methodology, J.K.; Project administration, K.M.; Supervision, K.M. and D.H.-S.; Validation, J.K. and D.H.-S.; Visualization, J.K.; Writing—original draft, J.K.; Writing—review & editing, J.K., K.M., D.H.-S., R.N.A. and B.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. Funding: This research received no external funding.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Mistake and Disclosure in a Model of Two-Sided Informational Inputs

This paper will examine some theoretical aspects of contractual non-disclosure and the related doctrine of unilateral mistake. These two legal rubrics are conceptually similar; each is concerned with the degree to which parties must communicate their understandings about the nature of the contract into which they are about to enter. If one party fails to reveal enough information, the other party may enter into the agreement under a misunderstanding and consequently may attempt to avoid contractual liability on the basis of mistake or on a theory of nondisclosure. The law of contracts clearly attaches a great deal of importance to ensuring that contracting parties have a mutual understanding about their agreement - a meeting of the minds - for that is the cornerstone of mutual assent. Indeed, one of the foundational theoretical goals of contract doctrine is to establish rules of law that will induce parties to reveal information that will reduce the cost of contracting and minimize the negative effects of breach. This “information forcing” concept has received substantial attention by many leading scholars as the animating principle behind the rule of Hadley v. Baxendale, which limits consequential damages to those that are foreseeable (i.e., those that have been communicated by the party seeking damages)

Firms, Courts, and Reputation Mechanisms: Towards a Positive Theory of Private Ordering

This Essay formulates a positive model that predicts when commercial parties will employ private ordering to enforce their agreements. The typical enforcement mechanism associated with private ordering is the reputation mechanism, in which a merchant community punishes parties in breach of contract by denying them future business. The growing private ordering literature argues that these private enforcement mechanisms can be superior to the traditional, less efficient enforcement measures provided by public courts. However, previous comparisons between public and private contractual enforcement have presented a misleading dichotomy by failing to consider a third enforcement mechanim: the vertically integrated firm. This Essay develops a model that comprehensively addresses three distinct types of enforcement mechanisms--firms, courts, and reputation-based private ordering. The model rests on a synthesis of transaction cost economics, which compares the efficiencies of firms versus markets, and the private ordering literature, which compares the efficiencies of public courts versus private ordering. It hypothesizes that private ordering will arise when agreements present enforcement difficulties, high-powered market incentives are important, and the costs of entry barriers are low. The Essay then conducts an illustrative test by comparing the model\u27s predictions to documented instances of private ordering

Buyer Power in International Markets

This paper investigates the implications for international markets of the existence of retailers/wholesalers with market power. Two main results are shown. First, in the presence of buyer power trade liberalization may lead to retail market concentration. Due to this concentration retail prices may be higher and welfare may be lower in free trade than in autarky, thus reversing the standard effects of trade liberalization. Second, the pro-competitive effects of trade liberalization are weaker under buyer power than under seller power.buyer power, retailing, international trade