What are the costs and benefits of patent systems?

There do not appear to be any cost-benefit assessments of the impact of patent systems, nor any data that can be used to directly assess the economic impact of patent systems. Discussions of patent policy therefore tend to be theoretical, and any evidence used is anecdotal rather than scientifically based. A wider search shows, however, that there is substantial empirical material on the costs and benefits of patent systems published in a very diverse range of journals and working papers. While these do not allow a full assessment of the economic impact of patent systems, they do provide useful evidence on many aspects of the impact of patent systems. This evidence is drawn together in this summary overview. The objective is to assist in a move towards an evidence-based discussion of patents as a central issue in innovation policy

Vers une économie post-TRIPS. Quelques repères et analyse préliminaire

In this paper we analyze the main economic consequences for the developing countries of the existence, the working and the evolution of the patent system in the context of TRIPS. We define the so-called post-TRIPS economy as the new system of international economic relations modified by the strengthening of intellectual property rights (IPR). We provide. a survey of theoretical and empirical literature dealing with TRIPS, the evolution of IPR system and the capacity of development. The effects of the strengthening of intellectual property rights on technology transfer are addressed as well.L'objet du papier est d'analyser les conséquences pour les pays en voie de développement de l'existence, du fonctionnement, et de l'évolution du système de brevet tel qu'il est maintenant structuré par les TRIPS (au sein de l'OMC). Nous définissons et analysons l'économie post-TRIPS, comme nouvelle structuration des relations économiques internationales modifiées sous l'effet du renforcement des droits de propriété intellectuelle. Nous fournissons un survol commentée de la littérature théorique et empirique sur les TRIPS et sur l'évolution du système de propriété intellectuelle et les capacités de développement. Les effets d'un renforcement des droits de brevets sur les transferts de technologies sont également abordés

Zvi Griliches on Diffusion, Lags and Productivity Growth …Connecting the Dots

The three most extensively cited papers by Zvi Griliches deal with the diffusion of innovations, distributed lags and the sources of the growth of measured total factor productivity, respectively. The close economic connections between these dynamic phenomena remained largely unexplored and were at best only implicit in his published writings until late in his career. Yet, from his later reflective writings, it is clear that Griliches not only recognized the existence of those connections, but regarded them to be critically important in understanding the determinants of the pace of economic growth. The present paper proceeds in that spirit. It examines the relationship between Gliches’ pioneering study of the diffusion of hybrid corn and the subsequent development of economic theories explaining diffusion phenomenon. Rather than offering a comprehensive survey of the literature, its aim is to expose the connections with lagged investment in capital-embodied innovations, and formalize of the micro-to macro links between technological diffusion dynamics and the pace of measured productivity growth. The heterodox, “evolutionary economics” aspects of this approach to explaining technological ‘transitions’ may be thought to be a significant yet under-appreciated part of Griliches’ intellectual legacy.

Vers une économie post-TRIPS. Quelques repères et analyse préliminaire

L'objet du papier est d'analyser les conséquences pour les pays en voie de développement de l'existence, du fonctionnement, et de l'évolution du système de brevet tel qu'il est maintenant structuré par les TRIPS (au sein de l'OMC). Nous définissons et analysons l'économie post-TRIPS, comme nouvelle structuration des relations économiques internationales modifiées sous l'effet du renforcement des droits de propriété intellectuelle. Nous fournissons un survol commentée de la littérature théorique et empirique sur les TRIPS et sur l'évolution du système de propriété intellectuelle et les capacités de développement. Les effets d'un renforcement des droits de brevets sur les transferts de technologies sont également abordés.TRIPS;brevet;développement;transfert de technologie

Information Lost and Found

At the core of every lawsuit is a mix of information-revealing documents that chronicle a party\u27s malfeasance, guarded memos that outline a lawyer\u27s trial strategy, fading memories that recall a jury\u27s key mistakes. Yet the law\u27s system for managing that information is still poorly understood. This Article makes new and better sense of that system. It begins with an original examination of five pieces of our civil information architecture--evidence tampering rules, automatic disclosure requirements, work product doctrine, peremptory challenge law, and bans on juror testimony--and compiles a novel study of how those doctrines intersect and overlap. It then fits these five doctrines into a creative rule typology, one built on the frame of (in)valid (mis)information. This typology charts our system\u27s most basic commitments--to accuracy, to adversarialism, and to procedural equality. But it also raises a critical question about the space between what our rules now require and what legal actors actually do. To help answer that question, this Article reaches out to an untapped social-science discipline: the rich and instructive field of Information Behavior (IB). This Article uses 1B to shed new light on how our information rules function and where they still may fail. It also offers fresh and focused insight on the nature of information in civil litigation--from before a lawsuit opens until well after it ends

Bound and Gagged: The Peculiar Predicament of Professional Jurors

A physicist sits as a juror in a murder case. The victim is a six-year-old boy. The cause of death: a screwdriver driven into the boy\u27s chest. The boy\u27s father, who is charged with murder, claims the boy accidentally tripped and fell onto the screwdriver in the bathroom. In support of this theory, the defense calls an expert witness, a physicist who testifies that-given the physical characteristics of the entry wound and the way objects are propelled through space-it is unlikely the boy was intentionally stabbed. The physicist juror disagrees, and during jury deliberations he suggests that the calculations the expert witness presented do not support the defense\u27s conclusions. The jury convicts

Reflections on Judicial ADR and the Multi-Door Courthouse at Twenty: Fait Accompli, Failed Overture, or Fledgling Adulthood?

Published in cooperation with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolutio