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Hsini Huang, Invisible Constraints: The Relationship among Non-Competition Agreements, Inventor Mobility, and Patent Commercialization, Science and Public Policy, Volume 44, Issue 3, June 2017, Pages 341–353, https://doi.org/10.1093/scipol/scw067
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Abstract
To advance our understanding of the institutional-level influence of intellectual property policies on innovation, this article investigates a set of hypotheses questioning the links between state-level non-competition agreements, inventor mobility, and patent commercialization. It uses US inventor survey data covering a sample of 1,900 triadic patents. Results provide some evidence in support of the prevalent, yet under-researched, proposition that mobile inventors perform better than non-mobile ones in terms of commercialization activity. This article also finds that the severity of judicial enforcement of non-competition agreements has hampered the positive contribution of inventor mobility to invention commercialization and concludes that legal infrastructure is a crucial factor in innovation and invention success stories. Findings, therefore, have considerable policy implications with respect to the role of the judiciary in the enforcement of non-competition agreements.