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“One For All: The Problem Of Uniformity Cost In Intellectual Property Law.” American University Law Review 55, No.4 (May 2006): 845-900., Michael W. Carroll

American University Law Review

Intellectual property law protects the owner of each patented invention or copyrighted work of authorship with a largely uniform set of exclusive rights. In the modern context, it is clear that innovators' needs for intellectual property protection vary substantially across industries and among types of innovation. Applying a socially costly, uniform solution to problems of differing magnitudes means that the law necessarily imposes uniformity cost by underprotecting those who invest in certain costly innovations and overprotecting those with low innovation costs or access to alternative appropriability mechanisms. This Article argues that reducing uniformity cost is the central problem for intellectual …