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Taking The Protection-Access Tradeoff Seriously, Harvey S. Perlman
Taking The Protection-Access Tradeoff Seriously, Harvey S. Perlman
Vanderbilt Law Review
Law and economics scholarship has contributed much to our understanding of both the nature of intellectual property rights generally and the features of individual intellectual property regimes. Indeed it is hard to imagine a field other than antitrust law that is so explicitly governed by economic thinking. In authorizing the copyright and patent systems, Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution expressly incorporates a social welfare imperative as the basis for its grant of power.' Certainly economists and economically oriented legal academics have given the field the attention it is due.
I am far from being a sophisticated …
The Pharmaceutical Industry And World Intellectual Property Standards, F. M. Scherer
The Pharmaceutical Industry And World Intellectual Property Standards, F. M. Scherer
Vanderbilt Law Review
When I was a high school student during the late 1940s, the first so-called "wonder drugs"-initially penicillin and then the broad-spectrum antibiotics such as tetracycline-were entering the U.S. market. From their profitable experience developing the broad- spectrum antibiotics, the leading pharmaceutical companies of America and Europe acquired a strong research orientation that led to a cascade of new therapeutic entities, including additional anti-infectives, vaccines, diuretics, and then other agents to reduce heart attack risks, tranquilizers, antidepressants, birth control pills, anti-fungal agents, immuno suppressants, corticosteroids, AIDS inhibitors, powerful pain relief agents, and many other agents effective against specific diseases. Thanks to …
Patent Policy Innovations: A Clinical Examination, Josh Lerner
Patent Policy Innovations: A Clinical Examination, Josh Lerner
Vanderbilt Law Review
On the domestic front, the dispute has centered on the question of whether the United States should honor commitments made in bi- lateral agreements with Japan to remove idiosyncratic features of its patent system. In particular, legislation to require the publication of pending patent applications and to grant awards to the party that is first to file for an award (as are the practices in most nations) have been fiercely debated in the past few congressional sessions. In the developing nations, the requirements for minimal levels of patent protection in the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariff and …
Elementary And Persistent Errors In The Economic Analysis Of Intellectual Property, Edmund W. Kitch
Elementary And Persistent Errors In The Economic Analysis Of Intellectual Property, Edmund W. Kitch
Vanderbilt Law Review
The literature on the economic analysis of intellectual property rights evidences a broad scholarly consensus on a number of central and important issues. First, intellectual property rights en- able economic actors to capture some of the benefits of the investment they make in establishing a good reputation, creating expressive works, and inventing new and improved technology. Absent intellectual property rights, copiers are free to take for themselves a significant part of the economic benefit generated by these types of investment and to undermine the incentive to make these in- vestments in the first place. Second, the investment activities induced by …
Cruel, Mean, Or Lavish? Economic Analysis, Price Discrimination And Digital Intellectual Property, James Boyle
Cruel, Mean, Or Lavish? Economic Analysis, Price Discrimination And Digital Intellectual Property, James Boyle
Vanderbilt Law Review
It is not because of the few thousand francs which would have to be spent to put a roof over the third-class carriages or to upholster the third-class seats that some company or other has open carriages with wooden benches .... What the company is trying to do is to prevent the passengers who can pay the second-class fare from travelling third class; it hits the poor, not because it wants to hurt them, but to frighten the rich .... And it is again for the same reason that the companies, having proved almost cruel to third-class passengers and mean …
Comment On "Lessons From Studying The International Economics Of Intellectual Property Rights", Paul Goldstein
Comment On "Lessons From Studying The International Economics Of Intellectual Property Rights", Paul Goldstein
Vanderbilt Law Review
Copyright is the "dog that didn't bark" in Keith Maskus's paper, "Lessons from Studying the International Economics of Intellectual Property Rights." Like virtually every other economic study of intellectual property and trade, the Maskus paper confines its examples and analysis to the industrial side of intellectual property-mainly patents and know-how-and leaves the authorial side-copyright-untouched. As a small step toward repairing this imbalance, and toward opening a corner of policy inquiry that has so far been largely unexamined, I would like here to make a few observations on copyright and trade in developing economies.
The regular omission of copyright from economic …
Intellectual Property Rights And The New Institutional Economics, Robert P. Merges
Intellectual Property Rights And The New Institutional Economics, Robert P. Merges
Vanderbilt Law Review
When someone speaks of "the law and economics of intellectual property rights" (IPRs), an image along the lines of the following diagram is apt to come to mind: Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati Professor of Intellectual Property Law, U.C. Berkeley (Boalt Hall) School of Law. For helpful comments, the author wishes to thank members of the Vanderbilt Law School Conference, "Taking Stock: The Law and Economics of Intellectual Property Rights," April, 2000. The usual disclaimer applies.
This is the basic illustration of monopoly price and output, familiar from introductory microeconomic texts. It is often used to explain the effects of …
Lessons From Studying The International Economics Of Intellectual Property Rights
Lessons From Studying The International Economics Of Intellectual Property Rights
Vanderbilt Law Review
When the Uruguay Round negotiations began in 1986, the subject of intellectual property rights ("IPRs") was completely unfamiliar to international trade economists. Presumably the area was ignored because global trade policy concerns had not moved into questions of domestic business regulation. Even today, readers will search in vain for serious treatments of the trade implications of exclusive rights to intellectual property ("IP") in international economics textbooks.
Despite this general inattention, a small but growing literature has emerged in which trade economists have framed specific questions and applied theory and statistical analysis to them. This literature has advanced the understanding of …
Lessons From Studying The International Economics Of Intellectual Property Rights, Keith E. Maskus
Lessons From Studying The International Economics Of Intellectual Property Rights, Keith E. Maskus
Vanderbilt Law Review
When the Uruguay Round negotiations began in 1986, the subject of intellectual property rights ("IPRs") was completely unfamiliar to international trade economists. Presumably the area was ignored because global trade policy concerns had not moved into questions of domestic business regulation. Even today, readers will search in vain for serious treatments of the trade implications of exclusive rights to intellectual property ("IP") in international economics textbooks.
Despite this general inattention, a small but growing literature has emerged in which trade economists have framed specific questions and applied theory and statistical analysis to them. This literature has advanced the understanding of …
Who's Patenting What? An Empirical Exploration Of Patent Prosecution, John R. Allison, Mark A. Lemley
Who's Patenting What? An Empirical Exploration Of Patent Prosecution, John R. Allison, Mark A. Lemley
Vanderbilt Law Review
Patents are big business. Individuals and companies are obtaining far more patents today than ever before. Some simple calculations make it clear that companies are spending over $5 billion a year obtaining patents in the U.S.- to say nothing of the costs of obtaining patents elsewhere, and of licensing and enforcing the patents. There are a number of reasons why patenting is on the rise; primary among them are a booming economy and a shift away from manufacturing and capital-intensive industries towards companies with primarily intellectual assets. But whatever the reason, it is evident that many companies consider patents important. …
Copyright And The Perfect Curve, Julie E. Cohen
Copyright And The Perfect Curve, Julie E. Cohen
Vanderbilt Law Review
Everyone agrees that the purpose of the copyright system is to promote progress.' At the same time, though, skepticism about the law's ability to define the substance of progress runs deep within copyright case law and theory. Legal decisionmakers and scholars have quite properly doubted their own ability to evaluate artistic or literary merit, and have worried that efforts to do so would result in an inappropriately elitist and conservative standard. In addition, there is room for substantial debate about whether the metaphor of forward motion leaves out other important measures of what "progress" is or might be. This agnosticism …
How Federal Circuit Judges Vote In Patent Validity Cases, John R. Allison, Mark A. Lemley
How Federal Circuit Judges Vote In Patent Validity Cases, John R. Allison, Mark A. Lemley
Florida State University Law Review
No abstract provided.
The Death Of Cyberspace, Lawrence Lessig
The Death Of Cyberspace, Lawrence Lessig
Washington and Lee Law Review
No abstract provided.
Square Pegs And Round Holes: Why Native American Economic And Cultural Policies And United States Intellectual Property Law Don't Fit, David B. Jordan
Square Pegs And Round Holes: Why Native American Economic And Cultural Policies And United States Intellectual Property Law Don't Fit, David B. Jordan
American Indian Law Review
No abstract provided.
Fighting The Phantom Menace: The Motion Picture Industry's Struggle To Protect Itself Against Digital Piracy, S. E. Oross
Fighting The Phantom Menace: The Motion Picture Industry's Struggle To Protect Itself Against Digital Piracy, S. E. Oross
Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law
Digital technology, combined with the influence of the Internet, represents an increasingly dangerous threat to the protection of copyrights in the global marketplace. Industries like Hollywood with business models based primarily on selling and/or licensing intellectual property have much to lose if that protection falters.
Jack Valenti, the president of the MPAA, knows this all too well. In recent testimony before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection of the Commerce Committee, he described how the growing availability of certain digital technology could turn online piracy into the bane of the motion picture industry. Noting that Internet pirates …
Sweeping The E-Commerce Patent Minefield: The Need For A Workable Business Method Exception, William Krause
Sweeping The E-Commerce Patent Minefield: The Need For A Workable Business Method Exception, William Krause
Seattle University Law Review
This Comment will trace the history of patent protection for methods of doing business over the past two decades, then it will inspect the problems that this protection has wrought: litigation, increased barriers to e-commerce entrepreneurs, and the threat of a less vibrant electronic marketplace. Because each traditional method of protecting intellectual property -- patent, copyright, and trade secret -- has strengths and limitations in protecting advancements in software technology, this Comment will examine the relative benefits of each method. Finally, this Comment will suggest a simple, easily applied test that will offer patent protection to true innovations while reserving …