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Asymmetric Market Failure And Prisoner's Dilemma In Intellectual Property, Wendy J. Gordon Apr 1992

Asymmetric Market Failure And Prisoner's Dilemma In Intellectual Property, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

When competitors engage in unrestrained copying of each others' intangible products, the structure can resemble a prisoner's dilemma in which free choice leads to unnecessarily low individual payoffs and low social welfare. There are many ways to avoid these low payoffs, such as contract enforcement, direct regulation of copying behavior through IP, and direct government subsidies. All of these modes alter the payoff pattern away from prisoner's dilemma.

When should lawmakers place copyright law or other IP law among the prime options to consider?

Because copyright, patent, misappropriation and the like all work through private-property markets, one key is to …


On Owning Information: Intellectual Property And The Restitutionary Impulse, Wendy J. Gordon Feb 1992

On Owning Information: Intellectual Property And The Restitutionary Impulse, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

Every day someone invests time, labor, or money in creating a valuable intangible. Someone collects information, creates an idea, designs a boat hull, writes a book, or comes up with a new way to market a product that someone else developed. Judicial treatment of these and other cognate occurrences has shifted dramatically in recent years.


Intellectual Property Protection Or Protectionism? Declaratory Judgment Use By Patent Owners Against Prospective Infringers, Lawrence M. Sung Jan 1992

Intellectual Property Protection Or Protectionism? Declaratory Judgment Use By Patent Owners Against Prospective Infringers, Lawrence M. Sung

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Of Harms And Benefits: Torts, Restitution, And Intellectual Property, Wendy J. Gordon Jan 1992

Of Harms And Benefits: Torts, Restitution, And Intellectual Property, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

Copyright and patent take the form of ordinary property. As tangible property has physical edges, intellectual property statutes create boundaries by defining the subject matters within their zone of protection. As real property owners have rights to prevent strangers from entering their land, intellectual property statutes and case law grant owners rights to exclude strangers from using the protected work in specified ways. As tangible property can be bought and sold, bequeathed and inherited, so can copyrights and patents.