Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Food Patents: The Unintended Consequences, Jay Dratler Jr.

Akron Intellectual Property Journal

This short paper explores the unintended consequences of this strong economic incentive. The underlying assumptions of patent law and its economic incentive are that innovation is good, and newer is better. But is that always so? Science and history suggest maybe not, for some very fundamental reasons. And there are reasons to believe that the risks of unintended consequences of innovation in food may be more hazardous than those in other fields of innovation.