Le brevet : un instrument efficace pour promouvoir l’innovation au profit de la croissance ou un mal nécessaire ?

Abstract

Theoretically, the introduction of a patent system serves two purposes: to encourage firms to produce new knowledge and to disseminate information. However, economic practice has highlighted the dilemma between protection and diffusion. This article aims to discuss how to determine the optimal level of protection through patent. Despite a broad consensus that patent is essential to spur innovation, there is no consensus on the optimal level of protection across the three dimensions of patents. In addition, there has been criticism that patents constitute a handicap to research that would result from them and therefore hinder technological progress. Thus, some economists emphasize the preference of secrecy over the patent. Others go even further in criticizing the protection of intellectual property rights and propose the removal of such rights by promoting a world without patents. Thus, we question the place of patent in the economic analysis