%0 Journal Article %T Runner-up patents: is monopoly inevitable? %+ Département d'économie (Sciences Po) (ECON) %A Henry, Emeric %< avec comité de lecture %@ 0347-0520 %J Scandinavian Journal of Economics %I Wiley %V 112 %N 2 %P 417-441 %8 2010 %D 2010 %R 10.1111/j.1467-9442.2010.01603.x %Z Humanities and Social Sciences/Economics and FinanceJournal articles %X Exclusive patents sacrifice product competition to provide firms incentives to innovate. We characterize an alternative mechanism whereby later inventors are allowed to share the patent if they discover within a certain time period of the first inventor. These runner-up patents increase social welfare under very general conditions. Furthermore, we show that the time window during which later inventors can share the patent should become a new policy tool at the disposal of the designer. This instrument will be used in a socially optimal mix with the breadth and length of the patent and could allow sorting between more or less efficient firms. %G English %2 https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-01023778/document %2 https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-01023778/file/runner-up-patents.pdf %L hal-01023778 %U https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-01023778 %~ SHS %~ SCIENCESPO %~ CNRS %~ AO-ECONOMIE %~ ECON-SCPO %~ SCPO_OA %~ SCPO-REPEC