Christian Helmers

I am a Professor of Economics at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. I am also a Visiting Professor at KU Leuven in Belgium. My research focuses on law and economics, innovation and intellectual property. I earned my B.A. in Economics from HEC Lausanne and my M.Sc. and DPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford.

chelmers@scu.edu

Christian Helmers

Publications

Working Papers

  • Judge (Ideology) Shopping, with Brian J. Love and Louis-Daniel Pape
  • Patent Protection and Software Firm Financing, with Brian J. Love
  • Political Instability Freezes Science: Evidence from a Government Shutdown, with Kris Gulati
  • Trademark Bullying
  • On your marks! Trademark races and their impact on product introductions, with Carsten Fink, Julian Kolev, and Andrew Toole

Journal Articles

  • Randomly Albright: The End of Judge Shopping in the Western District of Texas?, with Bernhard Ganglmair and Brian Love, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, forthcoming
  • Welcome to Waco! The Impact of Judge-Shopping on Litigation, with Brian Love, Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, Vol. 41 (1), pp. 294–315
  • Personalized Content, Engagement, and Monetization in a Mobile Puzzle Game, with Alessandro Iaria, Louis Pape, Julian Runge, Stefan Wagner, International Journal of Industrial Organization, Vol. 98 (2025)
  • Are Non-Practicing Entities Opportunistic? Evidence from Litigation of Standard Essential Patents, with Brian Love, Oxford Economic Papers, Vol. 77(1), pp. 271–288 (2025)
  • Patent Law Reform and Innovation: An Empirical Assessment of the Last 20 Years, with Brian Love, International Review of Law and Economics, Vol. 79 (2024)
  • Do Standard-Essential Patent Owners Behave Opportunistically? Evidence from U.S. District Court Dockets, with Brian Love and Yassine Lefouili, American Law and Economics Review, Vol. 25(1), pp. 300–337 (2023)
  • Patent Hold-Out and Licensing Frictions: Evidence from Litigation of Standard Essential Patents, with Brian Love, International Journal of Industrial Organization, Vol. 89 (2023)
  • Patent Validity and Litigation: Evidence from the U.S. Inter Partes Review, with Brian Love, Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 66(1), pp. 53–81 (2023)
  • Are Market Prices for Patent Licenses Observable? Evidence from 4G and 5G Licensing, with Brian Love, Columbia Science and Technology Law Review, Vol. 24, pp. 55–105 (2022)
  • Submarine Trademarks, with Carsten Fink, Andrea Fosfuri, and Amanda Myers, Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Vol. 31(4), pp. 818–840 (2022)
  • The Impact of Patent Litigation Insurance: Theory and Evidence from NPEs, with Bernhard Ganglmair and Brian Love, Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, Vol. 38(3), pp. 741–773 (2022)
  • Intellectual Property Use in Middle Income Countries: the Case of Chile, with Carsten Fink and Bronwyn Hall, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 70(1), pp. 321–357 (2021)
  • The Effect of Fee Shifting on Litigation: Evidence from a Court Reform in the UK, with Yassine Lefouili, Brian Love and Luke McDonagh, American Law and Economics Review, Vol. 23(1), pp. 56–99 (2021)
  • Technology Entry in the Presence of Patent Thickets, with Bronwyn Hall and Georg von Graevenitz, Oxford Economic Papers, Vol. 73(2), pp. 903–926 (2021)
  • Mixed ownership in the face of technological change: The response to digitization in the telecommunications industry, with David Wehrheim, Hakki Dogan Dalay, and Andrea Fosfuri, Journal of Corporate Finance, Vol. 64 (2020)
  • The Impact of International Patent Systems: Evidence from Accession to the European Patent Convention, with Bronwyn Hall, Research Policy, Vol. 49(9) (2019)
  • Attention and Saliency on the Internet: Evidence from an Online Recommendation System, with Pramila Krishnan and Manasa Patnam, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Vol. 161, pp. 216–242 (2019)
  • Green Technology Diffusion: A Post-Mortem Analysis of the Eco-Patent Commons, with Jorge Contreras and Bronwyn H. Hall, Houston Law Review, Vol. 57(1), pp. 61–109 (2019)
  • Inter Partes Review and the Design of Post-Grant Patent Reviews, with Colleen Chien and Alfred Spigarelli, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Vol. 33(3), pp. 817–854 (2019)
  • Choose the Neighbor before the House: Agglomeration Externalities in UK Science Parks, Journal of Economic Geography, Vol. 19(1), pp. 31–55 (2019)
  • Litigation of Standard-Essential Patents in Europe: A Comparative Analysis, with Jorge Contreras, Fabian Gaessler, and Brian Love, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Vol. 32, pp. 1457–1488 (2018)
  • Trademark Squatters: Theory and Evidence from Chile, with Carsten Fink and Carlos Ponce, International Journal of Industrial Organization, Vol. 59, pp. 340–371 (2018)
  • Who Needs a Copyright Small Claims Court? Evidence from the UK’s IP Enterprise Court, with Yassine Lefouili, Brian Love, and Luke McDonagh, Berkeley Technology Law Journal Commentaries (2018)
  • Shared Ownership of Intangible Property Rights: The Case of Patent Co-Assignments, with Andrea Fosfuri and Catherine Roux, Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 46(2), pp. 339–369 (2017)
  • Do Board Interlocks Increase Innovation? Evidence from Natural Experiments in India, with Manasa Patnam and Raghavendra Rau, Journal of Banking and Finance, Vol. 80, pp. 51–70 (2017)
  • What Can Explain the Chinese Patent Explosion?, with Markus Eberhardt and Zhihong Yu, Oxford Economic Papers, Vol. 69(1), pp. 239–262 (2017)
  • My precious! The location and diffusion of scientific research: evidence from the Synchrotron Diamond Light Source, with Henry Overman, Economic Journal, Vol. 127(604), pp. 2006–2040 (2017)
  • Patent Litigation in Europe, with Katrin Cremers, Maximilian Ernicke, Dietmar Harhoff, Luke McDonagh, Paula Schliessler, and Nicolas van Zeebroeck, European Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 44(1), pp. 1–44 (2017)
  • Invalid but Infringed?! An Analysis of the Bifurcated Patent Litigation System, with Katrin Cremers, Fabian Gässler, Dietmar Harhoff, and Yassine Lefouili, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Vol. 131, Part A, pp. 218–242 (2016)
  • The heterogeneous effect of software patents on expected returns: evidence from India, with Markus Eberhardt, Marcel Fafchamps, and Manasa Patnam, Economics Letters, Vol. 145, pp. 73–78 (2016)
  • Patent Litigation in China: Protecting Rights or the Local Economy?, with Brian Love and Markus Eberhardt, Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law, Vol. 18 (2016)
  • An Empirical Analysis of Primary and Secondary Pharmaceutical Patents in Chile, with Maria-Jose Abud and Bronwyn Hall, PLOS ONE (2015)
  • The choice between formal and informal intellectual property: a review, with Bronwyn Hall, Vania Sena, and Mark Rogers, Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 52(2), pp. 375–423 (2014)
  • Does the Rotten Child Spoil his Companion? Spatial Peer Effects Among Children in Rural India, with Manasa Patnam, Quantitative Economics, Vol. 5(1), pp. 67–121 (2014)
  • The Impact of University Research on Corporate Patenting: Evidence from UK Universities, with Mark Rogers, Journal of Technology Transfer, forthcoming
  • Is there a patent troll problem in the UK?, with Luke McDonagh and Brian Love, Fordham Intellectual Property, Media, and Entertainment Law Journal, Vol. 24, pp. 509–553 (2014)
  • Innovation and Diffusion of clean/green technology: Can patent commons help?, with Bronwyn Hall, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Vol. 66(1), pp. 33–51 (2013)
  • Patent Litigation in the UK - An Empirical Survey 2000-2008, with Luke McDonagh, Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice, Vol. 8(11), pp. 846–861 (2013)
  • Do Spillovers Matter When Estimating Private Returns to R&D?, with Markus Eberhardt and Hubert Strauss, Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 95(2), pp. 436–448 (2013)
  • The importance (or not) of patents to UK firms, with Bronwyn Hall, Vania Sena, and Mark Rogers, Oxford Economic Papers, Vol. 65(3), pp. 603–629 (2013)
  • Patent litigation in England and Wales and the issue-based approach to costs, with Luke McDonagh, Civil Justice Quarterly, Vol. 32(3), pp. 369–384 (2013)
  • The use and abuse of export subsidies: Evidence from Colombia, with Natalia Trofimenko, The World Economy, Vol. 36(4), pp. 465–486 (2013)
  • The Formation and Evolution of Childhood Skill Acquisition: Evidence from India, with Manasa Patnam, Journal of Development Economics, Vol. 95, pp. 252–266 (2011)
  • Does Patenting Help High-Tech Start-Ups?, with Mark Rogers, Research Policy, Vol. 40, pp. 1016–1027 (2011)
  • Innovation and the Survival of New Firms in the UK, with Mark Rogers, Review of Industrial Organization, Vol. 36(3), pp. 227–248 (2010)
  • Firm Growth and Firm Size, with Christoffer Koch and Mark Rogers, Applied Economics Letters, Vol. 17(16), pp. 1547–1550 (2010)

Book Chapters and Other Publications

  • Patent Assertion Entities in Europe, with Brian J. Love, Fabian Gaessler, Max Ernicke, in Daniel Sokol (Editor), Patent Assertion Entities and Competition Policy, Cambridge University Press, 2017
  • Trade Marks and Performance in UK firms, with Mark Rogers, in Teresa da Silva Lopes and Paul Duguid (eds.) ‘Trade Marks, Brands and Competitiveness,’ Routledge, 2010

Textbook

I am the co-author of Innovation and Intellectual Property , published by Oxford University Press, together with Bronwyn H. Hall .

Visit the textbook website

CV

You can download my CV below.

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