The Continuum of Excludability and the Limits of Patents Abstract
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
The Political Economy of Intellectual Property Treaties
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY TREATIES Suzanne Scotchmer* National Bureau of Economic Research Cambridge, MA 02138 Working Paper 9114 August 2002, revised January 2003 Abstract: Intellectual property treaties have two main types of provisions: national treatment of foreign inventors, and harmonization of protections. I address the positive question of when countries would want to treat foreign inventors the same as domestic inventors, and how their incentive to do so depends on reciprocity. I also investigate an equilibrium in which regional policy makers choose IP policies that serve regional interests, conditional on each other's policies, and investigate the degree to which \harmonization" can redress the resulting ine±ciencies. *I thank Stylianos Tellis and Kevin Schubert for research assistance, and Brian Wright, Alan Deardor®, Nancy Gallini, Rich Gilbert, Gene Grossman, Mark Lemley, Stephen Maurer, Pam Samuelson, and seminar participants at Industry Canada, Ecole des Mines, and University of Auckland for helpful comments. I thank the National Science Foundation for ¯nancial support. 1 1Introduction The economic rationale for intellectual property (IP) is that it encourages development of new products, and thus generates consumers' surplus. The net pro¯t that accrues to inventors is also a social bene¯t, since it is a transfer from consumers. However pro¯t is recognized as a necessary evil, since the °ip side of pro¯t is deadweight loss. There is no economic rationale for protecting inventors per se. This reasoning gets subverted in the international arena. To a trade policy negotia- tor, pro¯t earned abroad is unambiguously a good thing, and the consumers' surplus conferred on foreign consumers does not count at all. -
Group Size and Collective Action: Third Party Monitoring in Common
COMPARATIVEAgrawal, Goyal / THIRD-PARTYPOLITICAL STUDIES MONITORING / February 2001 This article examines the hypothesis that group size is inversely related to successful collective action. A distinctive aspect of the article is that it combines the analysis of primary data collected by the authors with a game-theoretic model. The model considers a group of people protecting a commonly owned resource from excessive exploitation. The authors view monitoring of indi- vidual actions as a collective good and focus on third-party monitoring. We argue that the costs of monitoring rise more than proportionately as group size increases. This factor along with lumpiness in the monitoring technology yields the following theoretical conclusion: Medium-sized groups are more likely than small or large groups to provide third-party monitor- ing. The authors find that the empirical evidence is consistent with this theoretical result. GROUP SIZE AND COLLECTIVE ACTION Third-Party Monitoring in Common-Pool Resources ARUN AGRAWAL Yale University SANJEEV GOYAL Erasmus University his article examines the relationship between group size and collec- Ttive action in the following setting: There is a group of people who have to protect a common-pool resource from overexploitation.1 They formulate rules of extraction. Enforcement of rules requires monitoring of individual 1. Familiar examples of common-pool resources include forests, pastures, fisheries, and irrigation works owned and managed by villagers. AUTHORS’ NOTE: We are grateful to the late Mancur Olson for helpful suggestions that have significantly improved this article. We also thank James Caporaso, Geoffrey Garrett, Jana Kunicova, Elinor Ostrom, and four anonymous referees for their useful comments. -
32:1 Berkeley Technology Law Journal
32:1 BERKELEY TECHNOLOGY LAW JOURNAL 2017 Pages 1 to 310 Berkeley Technology Law Journal Volume 32, Number 1 Production: Produced by members of the Berkeley Technology Law Journal. All editing and layout done using Microsoft Word. Printer: Joe Christensen, Inc., Lincoln, Nebraska. Printed in the U.S.A. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48—1984. Copyright © 2017 Regents of the University of California. All Rights Reserved. Berkeley Technology Law Journal University of California School of Law 3 Boalt Hall Berkeley, California 94720-7200 [email protected] http://www.btlj.org BERKELEY TECHNOLOGY LAW JOURNAL VOLUME 32 NUMBER 1 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS ARTICLES THE “ARTICLE OF MANUFACTURE” IN 1887 .......................................................... 1 Sarah Burstein STANDING AGAINST BAD PATENTS ..................................................................... 87 Sapna Kumar DIVERSIFYING THE DOMAIN NAME GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK ..................... 137 Alice A. Wang THE DATA-POOLING PROBLEM .......................................................................... 179 Michael Mattioli HOW OFTEN DO NON-PRACTICING ENTITIES WIN PATENT SUITS? ................... 237 John R. Allison, Mark A. Lemley & David L. Schwartz SUBSCRIBER INFORMATION The Berkeley Technology Law Journal (ISSN1086-3818), a continuation of the High Technology Law Journal effective Volume 11, is edited by the students of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Boalt Hall) and is published in print three times each year (March, September, December), with a fourth issue published online only (July), by the Regents of the University of California, Berkeley. Periodicals Postage Rate Paid at Berkeley, CA 94704-9998, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Journal Publications, University of California, Berkeley Law—Library, LL123 Boalt Hall—South Addition, Berkeley, CA 94720-7210. -
Intellectual Property's Leviathan
KAPCZYNSKI_BOOKPROOF (DO NOT DELETE) 12/3/2014 2:10 PM INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY’S LEVIATHAN AMY KAPCZYNSKI* Neoliberalism is a complex, multifaceted concept. As such, it offers many possible points of entry into my primary field of study, that of intellectual property (IP) law. We might begin by investigating tensions between IP law and a purely economic conception of neoliberalism, for example.1 Or we might consider whether or how IP law might be “insulated from democratic governance” while also being rapidly assembled.2 In these few pages, I want to focus instead on a different line of inquiry, one that reveals the powerful grip that one particular neoliberal conception has on our contemporary imaginary: the neoliberal conception of the state. Today, both those who defend robust private IP law and their most prominent critics, I will show, typically describe Copyright © 2014 by Amy Kapczynski. This article is also available at http://lcp.law.duke.edu/. * Associate Professor of Law, Yale Law School. Many thanks to Talha Syed, David Grewal, and Jed Purdy for helpful conversation and comments. This paper is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International license and should be reproduced as “first published in 77 LAW & CONTEMP. PROBS 131 (Fall 2014).” 1. Neoliberalism is commonly understood in economic terms. See, e.g., David Singh Grewal & Jedediah Purdy, Introduction: Law and Neoliberalism, 77 LAW & CONTEMP. PROBS., no. 4, 2014 at 1. David Harvey has argued, however, that neoliberalism as “a political project to re-establish the conditions for capital accumulation and to restore the power of economic elites” tends to prevail over the “economic utopian” conception of neoliberalism. -
Peer Monitoring, Ostracism and the Internalization of Social Norms$
Peer Monitoring, Ostracism and the Internalization of Social NormsI Rohan Dutta1, David K. Levine2, Salvatore Modica3 Abstract We study the consequences of endogenous social norms that overcome public goods problems by providing incentives through peer monitoring and ostracism. We examine incentives both for producers and for monitors. The theory has applications to organizational design - oering possible explanations for why police are rotated between precincts while professional organizations such as doctors are self-policing. It leads to a Lucas critique for experiments and natural experiments - a small level of intervention may be insucient to produce changes in social norms while a high level of intervention may have a very dierent eect because it becomes desirable to change social norms. Finally we study the internalization of social norms - showing how on the one hand it makes it possible to overcome incentive problems that pure monitoring and punishment cannot, and on the other how it leads to an interesting set of trade-os. We conclude with some discussion of cultural norms where norms are not established benevolently by a particular group for its benet but established by others for their own benet. Keywords: one, two IFirst Version: October 14, 2017. We would like to thank Andrea Mattozzi. We gratefully acknowledge support from the EUI Research Council. ∗Corresponding author David K. Levine, 1 Brooking Dr., St. Louis, MO, USA 63130 Email addresses: [email protected] (Rohan Dutta), [email protected] (David K. Levine), [email protected] (Salvatore Modica) 1Department of Economics, McGill University 2Department of Economics, EUI and WUSTL 3Università di Palermo Preprint submitted to Mimeo: dklevine.com February 19, 2018 1. -
Introduction to Endogenous Growth
Introduction to Endogenous Growth The economics of ideas Econ 4960: Economic Growth Review of the Exogenous (Solow) Growth Model ! " Investment cannot be the source of long-run growth ! " Only TFP growth generates sustained growth ! " Where does TFP growth come from? We don’t know ! " Endogenous growth models seek to explain the behavior of TFP growth. ! " These are called “endogenous-”, exactly because TFP is determined within the model.. That is, “endogenously.” Econ 4960: Economic Growth Road Map for Coming Lectures ! " Economics of Ideas (CJ, Chapter 4) ! " Basic Endogenous Growth: The AK Model (Romer 1986, Lucas 1988) CJ, Chapter 8 ! " The Full Model in Romer 1990 Econ 4960: Economic Growth The Economics of Ideas ! " Ideas improve the technology of production: ! " Ford paid double the market wages and got much higher labor productivity. ! " Schwab made workers in different shifts compete to improve output per worker. ! " Japanese companies, Wal-mart and others developed and improved Just-in-Time (JIT) Production and Inventory management techniques ! " Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, etc. Econ 4960: Economic Growth Key feature of Ideas ! " Ideas are very different than most economic goods. They are non-rivalrous: ! " One person using an idea does not preclude others from using it. ! " Ideas are not the only non-rivalrous good: national defense, satellite TV, digital music, etc. ! " The key feature of all non-rival goods is that: (i) very high fixed cost and (ii) ~zero marginal cost of production ! " Non-rival goods are often called “intellectual property” ! " Paul Romer was one of the first to appreciate the importance of the non-rival feature of ideas for growth. -
An Introduction to the Digital Commons: from Common-Pool Resources to Community Governance Melanie Dulong De Rosnay, Hervé Le Crosnier
An Introduction to the Digital Commons: From Common-Pool Resources to Community Governance Melanie Dulong de Rosnay, Hervé Le Crosnier To cite this version: Melanie Dulong de Rosnay, Hervé Le Crosnier. An Introduction to the Digital Commons: From Common-Pool Resources to Community Governance. Building Institutions for Sustain- able Scientific, Cultural and genetic Resources Commons, Sep 2012, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. http://biogov.uclouvain.be/iasc/index.php?page=fullpapers. halshs-00736920 HAL Id: halshs-00736920 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00736920 Submitted on 30 Sep 2012 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. An Introduction to the Digital Commons: From Common-Pool Resources to Community Governance Mélanie Dulong de Rosnay, Institute for Communication Sciences of CNRS, Paris Hervé Le Crosnier, University of Caen and Institute for Communication Sciences of CNRS, Paris Abstract This article proposes an introductory analysis of digital resources and commons-based peer production online communities with the framework of the common pool-resources. Trying to go beyond the classic economy dichotomy between physical resources scarcity and informational resources reproducibility, the approach allows to focus not only on the nature of the resources, but mostly on the governance by the communities to produce resources which remain available for all to share and build upon, while avoiding risks of pollution, degradation, underuse or enclosure by the market. -
Beithr LATE THAN EARLY: VERTICAL DIFFERENTIATION in the ADOPTION of a NEW TECHNOLOGY
NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES BEIThR LATE THAN EARLY: VERTICAL DIFFERENTIATION IN THE ADOPTION OF A NEW TECHNOLOGY Prajit K. Dutta Saul Lach Aldo Rustichini Working Paper No. 4473 NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 September 1993 We thank seminar audiences at Chicago, Rochester, Rutgersandthe Game Theory Conference at Stonybrook as well as loannis Benopoulos, Andrew Caplin, Jay P11 Chol, Drew Fudcnberg, Ananth Madhavan, Axle! Pakes, Suzanne Scotchmer and John Sutton for helpful comments. We have also benefitted from the comments of two anonymous referees and a co-editor. The usual disclaimer, unfortunately, applies. Any opinions expressed are those of the authors and not those of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER Working Paper #4473 September 1993 BhntR LATE THAN EARLY: VERTICAL DIFFERENTIATION IN THE ADOPTION OF A NEW TECHNOLOGY ABSTRACT After the initial breakthrough in the research phase of R&D a new productundergoes a process of change, improvement and adaptation to market conditions. We model the strategic behavior of fw in this development phase of R&D. We emphasize that a key dimensionto this competition is the innovations that lead to product differentiation and quality improvement. In a duopoly model with a single adoption choice, we derive endogeneously the level and diversity of product innovations. We demonstrate the existence of equilibria in which one firm enters early with a low quality product while the other continues to develop the technology and eventually markets a high quality good. In such an equilibrium, no monopoly rent is dissipated and the later innovator makes more profits. -
With Or Without a Patent?
JOURNAL OF SMART ECONOMIC GROWTH www.jseg.ro ISSN: 2537-141X Volume 3, Number 1, Year 2018 WHAT KIND OF INTELLECTUAL PROPFRTY REGIME IS MORE FAVORABLE TO INNOVATION: WITH OR WITHOUT A PATENT? Mohamed MABROUKI ISAEG MACMA [email protected] Abstract: Theoretically, the introduction of a patent system serves two purposes: to encourage firms to produce new knowledge and to disseminate information. However, economic practice has highlighted the dilemma between protection and diffusion. In addition, there has been criticism that patents constitute a handicap to research that would result from them and therefore hinder technological progress. Thus, some economists emphasize the preference of secrecy over the patent. Others go even further in criticizing the protection of intellectual property rights and propose the removal of such rights by promoting a world without patents. In this article we will analyze some ideas that do not see the patent as the most effective way to ensure protection, in exchange for a dissemination of knowledge. The authors who defend this position raise the questions: Patents an incentive or brake to innovation? The patent: is it not an unjustifiable property right? JEL classification: O30, O31, O34. Key words: innovation, patent, secret, intellectual property. INTRODUCTION Theoretically, the introduction of a patent system serves two purposes: to encourage firms to produce new knowledge and to disseminate information. However, economic practice has highlighted the dilemma between protection and diffusion. Despite a broad consensus that the patent is essential to spur innovation, there is no consensus on the optimal level of protection across the three dimensions of patents. In addition, there has been criticism that patents constitute a handicap to research that would result from them and therefore hinder technological progress. -
1. Information As Experience Good: Information Goods Are Experience Goods
Pricing Information Goods for Digital Libraries (Seminar aus Informationswirtschaft 4085) SS 2003 Strategies for the digital library of the WU - Focus on Rights Management Univ.-Ass. Mag. Dr. Michael Hahsler Univ. Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Panny Abteilung für Informationswirtschaft Institut für Informationsverarbeitung und Informationswirtschaft Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien Augasse 2-6 A-1090 Wien, AUSTRIA Telefon: 31336/6081 E-mail: [email protected] 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1. Introduction ..…………………………………………………………………3 2. Information goods and the digital technology………………………………...4 Information goods ……………………………………………………………….4 The problem with information goods in digital form ………………………………...6 3. Digital Libraries……………………………………………………………….7 Definition ………………………………………………………………………7 Properties of Digital Libraries …………………………………………………….7 4. Digital Rights Management..………………………………………………….8 Architecture ………………………………………………………………………...………9 Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998…………………………………………...…..10 5. Strategies for publishers of IP………………………………………………..15 How digital technology affects the management of intellectual property ……………...15 6. Case Studies: What do other digital libraries do? …………………………...18 The National Academies Press …………………………………………………..18 The Academic Library ………………………………………………………….19 Dissertation.com ……….……...………………………………………………20 University of California Press and California ……………………………………..22 Digital Library's eScholarship program 7. EPub and strategies for ePub ……………………………………………….24 8. Literature ……………………………………………………………………27 -
The Marketing of Information in the Information Age Hofacker and Goldsmith
The Marketing of Information in the Information Age Hofacker and Goldsmith THE MARKETING OF INFORMATION IN THE INFORMATION AGE CHARLES F. HOFACKER, Florida State University RONALD E. GOLDSMITH, Florida State University The long-standing distinction made between goods and services must now be joined by the distinction between these two categories and “information products.” The authors propose that marketing management, practice, and theory could benefit by broadening the scope of what marketers market by adding a third category besides tangible goods and intangible services. It is apparent that information is an unusual and fundamental physical and logical phenomenon from either of these. From this the authors propose that information products differ from both tangible goods and perishable services in that information products have three properties derived from their fundamental abstractness: they are scalable, mutable, and public. Moreover, an increasing number of goods and services now contain information as a distinct but integral element in the way they deliver benefits. Thus, the authors propose that marketing theory should revise the concept of “product” to explicitly include an informational component and that the implications of this revised concept be discussed. This paper presents some thoughts on the issues such discussions should address, focusing on strategic management implications for marketing information products in the information age. INTRODUCTION “information,” in addition to goods and services (originally proposed by Freiden et al. 1998), A major revolution in marketing management while identifying unique characteristics of pure and theory occurred when scholars established information products. To support this position, that “products” should not be conceptualized the authors identify key attributes that set apart solely as tangible goods, but also as intangible an information product from a good or a services. -
An Introduction to the Law & Economics of Information
Columbia Law School Scholarship Archive Faculty Scholarship Faculty Publications 2014 An Introduction to the Law & Economics of Information Tim Wu Columbia Law School, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Tim Wu, An Introduction to the Law & Economics of Information, COLUMBIA LAW & ECONOMICS WORKING PAPER NO. 482; COLUMBIA PUBLIC LAW RESEARCH PAPER NO. 14-399 (2014). Available at: https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/1863 This Working Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Publications at Scholarship Archive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Scholarship Archive. For more information, please contact [email protected]. An Introduction to the Law & Economics of Information Tim Wu† Information is an extremely complex phenomenon not fully understood by any branch of learning, yet one of enormous importance to contemporary economics, science, and technology. (Gleick 2012, Pierce 1980). Beginning from the 1970s, economists and legal scholars, relying on a simplified “public good” model of information, have constructed an impressively extensive body of scholarship devoted to the relationship between law and information. The public good model tends to justify law, such as the intellectual property laws or various forms of securities regulation that seek to incentivize the production of information or its broader dissemination. A review of the last several decades of scholarship based on the public choice model suggests the following two trends. First, scholars have extended the public good model of information to an ever-increasing number of fields where law and information intersect.