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Patents As Credentials, Jason Rantanen, Sarah E. Jack
Patents As Credentials, Jason Rantanen, Sarah E. Jack
Washington and Lee Law Review
The conventional explanation for why people seek patents draws on a simple economic rationale. Patents, the usual story goes, provide a financial reward: the ability to engage in supracompetitive pricing by excluding others from practicing the claimed technology. People are drawn to file for patents because that is how these economic rewards are secured. While scholars have proposed variations on the basic exclusionary mechanism, and there is a general acknowledgement that patents can affect a firm’s reputation, the actual mechanisms of patents’ effect on individuals — human beings — remains relatively uncharted. In this Article we offer a concrete theory …