A successful start-up firm makes two important strategic choices during its early life. It must decide upon a "technology strategy" and a "commercialization strategy." In this paper, I advance an economic theory that links these two decisions.
At least 164 papers have defined a "patent thicket" since the first mention of the term in 1988. Authors are frequently inconsistent in their definitions and overall there is evidence of a growing confusion concerning patent thickets. Our analysis largely resolves this confusion.