Essays on the Economics of Patent Rights

The thesis dissertation intends to investigate the decisions of firms to accumulate related patents in portfolios. I thereby want to advance not only the knowledge on the importance of intellectual property and innovation for firms, but the literature on the value of patents which for a long time has stagnated at examining at individual patents in isolation. To meet the objectives, I will develop a dynamic stochastic model of patent application and renewal decisions for firms based on renewal and fees data. The model will capture joint decisions made by a patent portfolio holder and estimates the value of patent portfolio. It will allow me to analyse theoretically and empirically aspects of the dynamics of patent portfolio decisions by firms in more details.