Law Commons^™

Patents And Business Models For Software Firms, John R. Allison, Abe Dunn, Ronald J. Mann

Faculty Scholarship

We analyze the relation between patents and the different business models available to firms in the software industry. The paper builds on Cusumano's work defining the differences among firms that sell products, those that provide services, and the hybrid firms that fall between those polar categories. Combining data from five years of Software Magazine's Software 500 with data about the patenting practices of those software firms, we analyze the relation between the share of revenues derived from product sales and the firm's patenting practices. Accounting for size, R&D intensity, and sector-specific effects, the paper finds a robust positive correlation between …

Patent Buy-Outs For Global Disease Innovations For Low- And Middle-Income Countries, Kevin Outterson

Faculty Scholarship

Drug prices are uniquely susceptible to radical price reductions through generic competition. Patented pharmaceuticals may be priced at more than 30 times the marginal cost of production; the excess is the patent rent collected by the drug company while the patent and exclusive marketing periods remain. Patent rents are significant. AIDS drugs which sell for US$10,000 per person per year in the US are sold generically for less than US$200. If patented drugs could be sold at the marginal cost of production, cost effective treatments would become even more attractive, and other interventions would become affordable.

This Article proposes marginal …