studies

This page highlights some of the literature regarding the Australian and overseas patent systems.

It covers -

• history
• international
• impacts
• activity

     history

The history of the UK and US patent systems is explored in Neil Davenport's The United Kingdom Patent System (London: Kenneth Mason 1979), Henry Dutton's The Patent System & Inventive Activity During the Industrial Revolution (Manchester: Manchester Uni Press 1984), Josh Lerner's 2000 NBER paper 150 Years of Patent Protection, Eric Schiff's Industrialisation Without National Patents: The Netherlands, 1869-1912; Switzerland, 1850-1907 (Princeton: Princeton Uni Press 1971), Stacy Jones' The Patent Office (New York: Praeger 1971), Bruce Bugbee's The Genesis of American Patent & Copyright Law (Washington: Public Affairs 1967) and The Growing Complexity of the United States Patent System (PDF) by John Allison & Mark Lemley.

Precursors are explored in Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni Press 2004) by Patricia Long and Encouraging Innovation in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: The Society of Arts & Patents, 1754-1904 (Gunnislake: High View 2006) by James Harrison.

     international

An introduction to the international regime is provided by Stephen Ladas' Patents, Trademarks & Related Rights: National & International Protection (Cambridge: Harvard Uni Press 1975), Endeshaw Assafa's Intellectual property policy for non-industrial countries (Aldershot: Dartmouth 1996), Intellectual Property Rights In The Global Economy (Washington: Institute for International Economics 2000) by Keith Maskus, Michael Ryan's Knowledge Diplomacy: Global Competition & the Politics of Intellectual Property (Washington: Brookings 1998), Global Intellectual Property Rights: Knowledge, Access & Development (Basingstoke: Macmillan 2001) edited by Peter Drahos & Ruth Mayne and The New Economic Diplomacy: Decision Making & Negotiation in International Economic Relations (Aldershot: Ashgate 2003) edited by Nicholas Bayne & Stephen Woolcock.

Other works are highlighted here.

     impacts

Aubrey Silberston's The Economic Impact of the Patent System (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 1973), Brigitte Andersen's Technological Change & the Evolution of Corporate Innovation: The Structure of Patenting 1890-1990 (Cheltenham: Elgar 2001), Sources of Industrial Leadership: Studies of Seven Industries (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 1999) edited by David Mowery & Richard Nelson and Johann Murmann's Knowledge & Competitive Advantage: The Coevolution of Firms, Technology and National Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 2003) explore patent protection as an incentive/disincentive for innovation. For Australia see in particular Intellectual Property Law and Innovation (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 2007) by William van Caenegem

They are complemented by Doron Ben-Atar's Trade Secrets: Intellectual Piracy and the Origins of American Industrial Power (New Haven: Yale Uni Press 2004), Patents, R&D & Productivity (Chicago: Uni of Chicago Press 1984) edited by Zvi Griliches, the 2006 World Health Organization Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health report and Knowledge & Innovation in the New Service Economy (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar 2000) edited by Birgitte Andersen, Jeremy Howells, Richard Miles & Joanne Roberts. Kees Gispen's Poems in Steel: National Socialism & the Politics of Inventing from Weimar to Bonn (New York: Berghahn 2002) is rich in insights. We have explored broader questions of innovation and competition in our Economy guide and in the 'fair use' page later in this guide.

For an empirical study questioning the value of patents per se see Sequential Innovation, Patents & Imitation (PDF) by James Bessen & Eric Maskin of MIT and The Patent Paradox Revisited, a 1999 paper by Bronwyn Hall & Rose Ham. There is a defence in Thomas Mandeville's Understanding Novelty: Information, Technological Change & The Patent System (Norwood: Ablex 1996), Wesley Cohen's 2000 NBER paper Protecting Their Intellectual Assets: Appropriability Conditions and Why U.S. Manufacturing Firms Patent (or Not) and Stephen Ladas' Patents, Trademarks & Related Rights. An overview is provided in the US National Academies study Patents in the Knowledge-Based Economy, Zvi Griliches' R&D and Productivity: The Econometric Evidence (Chicago: Uni of Chicago Press 1998) and work by Robert Gordon cited elsewhere on this site.

     activity

Most legal disputes end in partnerships or licensing agreements: a company can generate enormous revenue by licensing its patents and several companies such as Priceline.com (which has sued Microsoft for alleged infringements) are now valued primarily for their IP. For a view of litigation see Mark Lemley's 2000 paper Who's Patenting What? An Empirical Exploration of Patent Prosecution, Kimberly Moore's 2001 Judges, Juries and Patent Cases - An Empirical Peek Inside the Black Box and the 2001 paper Characteristics of Patent Litigation: A Window on Competition by Jean Lanjouw & Mark Schankerman. Some idea of the money involved in such litigation is provided in a table of US court awards and sales data compiled by Greg Aharonian and in the articles by Chris Holt.  

The Australian Industrial Property Office (AIPO), the local version of the US Patent Office, has recently published an online version of its detailed Manual of Practice & Procedure. Australian law is discussed in Australian Patent Law (Chatswood: Butterworths 2005) by D Bucknell, K Beattie, A Goatcher & H Rofe. For biotech see Luigi Palombi's 2004 dissertation The Patenting of Biological Materials In The Context of The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (PDF)

The National Academies study noted above maps business method patents in relation to internet/e-commerce patents and software patents.

The Maastricht University Portal on Information Economy & Intellectual Property (here) points to some EU studies. There's more detail at Bernard Lang's Software Patentability Debate site. Insights are also offered on the European Intellectual Property Association (EIPAWEB) site.




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