Publications
Publications
- July 2002
- Review of Economic Studies
The Sale of Ideas: Strategic Disclosure, Property Rights, and Contracting
By: James J. Anton and Dennis A. Yao
Abstract
Ideas are difficult to sell when buyers cannot assess an idea's value before it is revealed and sellers cannot protect a revealed idea. These problems exist in a variety of intellectual property sales ranging from pure ideas to poorly protected inventions and reflect the nonverifiability of key elements of an intellectual property sale. An expropriable partial disclosure can be used as a signal, allowing the seller to obtain payment based on the value of the remaining (undisclosed) know-how. We examine contracting after the disclosure and find that seller wealth is pivotal in supporting a partial disclosure equilibrium and in determining the payoff size.
Keywords
Citation
Anton, James J., and Dennis A. Yao. "The Sale of Ideas: Strategic Disclosure, Property Rights, and Contracting." Review of Economic Studies 69, no. 3 (July 2002): 513–531. (Harvard users click here for full text.)