James E. Bessen
Education
Harvard College
A.B., 1972
Graduate courses in economics.
Experience
Boston University School of Law
Lecturer in Law (2004-present)Bowdoin College
Visiting Professor (Spring 2005)MIT Sloan School of Management
Visiting Scholar (2002-2003)Technological Innovation and Intellectual Property
Editor (2002-present)Research on Innovation
Director and Founder (1998-present)Consultant (1994-1996)
Intergraph Corporation
CEO, Bestinfo Division (1993-1994)Bestinfo
Founder, CEO, Chairman (1983-1993)Systems Consultant (1981-1983)
Translog, Day and Zimmerman
Systems Analyst (1978-1981)
Books
Bessen, James and Michael J. Meurer (2008), Do Patents Work? The empirical evidence that today’s patents fail as property and discourage innovation, and how they might be fixed.
Publications
Bessen, James and Eric Maskin (2007 forthcoming), “Sequential Innovation, Patents, and Imitation,” RAND Journal of Economics.
Bessen, James and Robert M. Hunt (2007), “An Empirical Look at Software Patents,” Journal of Economics and Management Strategy 16, no. 1, pp. 157-89.
Bessen, James (2006), “Open Source Software: Free Provision of Complex Public Goods,” in Jürgen Bitzer and Philipp J. H. Schröder, eds., The Economics of Open Source Software Development, Elsevier B. V.
Bessen, James and Michael J. Meurer (2006), “Patent Litigation with Endogenous Disputes,” American Economic Review, 96, no. 2, pp. 77-81.
Bessen, James and Michael J. Meurer (2005), “Lessons for Patent Policy from Empirical Research on Patent Litigation,” Lewis & Clark Law Review, v. 9, no. 1, pp. 1-27.
Bessen, James and Eric S. Maskin (2005), “Geistiges Eigentum im Internet: Ist alte Weishit ewig gültig?,” (“Intellectual Property on the Internet: What’s Wrong with the Conventional Wisdom?”), in Lutterbeck, Bernd, Robert A. Gehring, and Matthias Bärwolff, Open Source Jahrbuch 2005: Zwischen Softwareentwicklung und Gesellschaftsmodell, Berlin: Lehmanns Media.
Bessen, James (2005), “Patents and the Diffusion of Technical Information,” Economics Letters, v. 86, no. 1, pp. 121-128.
Bessen, James and Robert M. Hunt (2004), “The Software Patent Experiment,” Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Q3 2004, pp. 22-32.
Bessen, James and Robert M. Hunt (2004), “The Software Patent Experiment,” in proceedings of OECD Conference on IPR, Innovation and Economic Performance.
Bessen, James (2004), “Holdup and Licensing of Cumulative Innovations with Private Information,” Economics Letters v. 82, No. 3, pp. 321-26.
Bessen, James (2003), “Technology and Learning by Factory Workers: The Stretch-Out at Lowell, 1842,” Journal of Economic History, 63, pp. 33-64.
Bessen, James (2003), “IT Adoption Costs and Productivity: A Reply to Diego Comin,” Review of Economic Dynamics, 6, pp. 252-62.
Bessen, James (2002), “What Good is Free Software?” in Robert Hahn, editor, Is Open Source the Future of Software?, AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, Washington, DC.
Bessen, James (2002), “Technology Adoption Costs and Productivity Growth: The Transition to Information Technology,” Review of Economic Dynamics, 5, pp. 443-69.
Bessen, James (1993), “Riding the Marketing Information Wave,” Harvard Business Review, September-October 1993, 71, pp. 150-60.
Working Papers
Bessen, James and Michael J. Meurer (2007), “The Private Costs of Patent Litigation,” Boston Univ. School of Law Working Paper No. 07-08.
Bessen, James (2006), “The Value of U.S. Patents by Owner and Patent Characteristics,” Boston Univ. School of Law Working Paper No. 06-46.
Bessen, James (2006), “Estimates of Firms' Patent Rents from Firm Market Value,” Boston Univ. School of Law Working Paper No. 06-14.
Bessen, James (2006), “A Comment on ‘Do Patents Facilitate financing in the Software Industry?’” Boston Univ. School of Law Working Paper No. 06-13.
Bessen, James and Michael J. Meurer (2005), “The Patent Litigation Explosion,” B.U.S.L. Working Paper 05-18.
Bessen, James and Robert M. Hunt (2003), “An Empirical Look at Software Patents,” Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Working Paper 03-17.
Bessen, James (2003), “Patent Thickets: Strategic Patenting of Complex Technologies.”
Bessen, James and Eric Maskin (2000), “Sequential Innovation, Patents, and Imitation,” MIT Department of Economics Working Paper No. 00-01.
Bessen, James (2000), “Real Options and the Adoption of New Technologies,” Research on Innovation Working Paper.
Bessen, James (1997), “Productivity Adjustments and Learning-by-Doing as Human Cap-ital,” Center for Economic Studies (Bureau of the Census) Working Paper, CES-WP-97-17.
Major Research Funding
NSF, SES-0527657 “Harnessing Patent Data for Social Science Research,” Senior Investigator