Patent Experimentalism

I haven't had much time for blogging recently because I've been writing and revising a new article, Patent Experimentalism, which I'll be presenting at IPSC on August 8. This is still a work in progress, so please send me your feedback and suggestions! Here is the current abstract:

Patent Costs & Benefits

Do the costs of U.S. patents exceed their benefits for publicly traded firms? This is the claim of John Turner, James Bessen, Peter Neuhäusler, and Jonathan Williams in their newly posted working paper, The Costs and Benefits of United States Patents. Bessen's prior work has very strong supporters and detractors, and I suspect the response to this paper will be similarly polarized. But I think it is worth understanding precisely what this paper is attempting to measure—and why, even if Turner et al. are correct that the costs they measure exceed the benefits they measure, this does not imply that we should scrap the patent system (though it may be cause for concern).

Call for Papers: Innovation Law Beyond IP

Next spring (on 3/30/14), the Yale Law School Information Society Project will host a one-day conference, Innovation Law Beyond IP:

Intellectual property law is only one of many legal institutions that can help promote, stifle, or govern knowledge production. For example, government also transfers rewards to innovators through tax incentives, grants, and prizes; regulates innovation through the administrative state (the EPA, FTC, SEC, CPFB etc.); creates legal rules and infrastructures that can help sustain or undermine commons-based production; and influences innovation through law and institutions related to immigration, tort law, education, and more. How do forms of law and governance beyond IP promote innovation, as well as values such as equity, privacy, and democracy? How should these systems be combined, both with one another and with IP law?

As described in the conference announcement, short paper proposals are due by 8/1.