Patent Failure
by T. Colin Dodd
(Via Groklaw)
Patent Failure: How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk
by James Bessen and Michael J. Meurer
Princeton University Press
March 2008
In the last several years, business leaders, policymakers, and inventors have complained to the media and to Congress that today’s patent system stifles innovation instead of fostering it. But like the infamous patent on the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, much of the cited evidence about the patent system is pure anecdote—making realistic policy formation difficult. Is the patent system fundamentally broken, or can it be fixed with a few modest reforms? Moving beyond rhetoric, Patent Failure provides the first authoritative and comprehensive look at the economic performance of patents in forty years. James Bessen and Michael Meurer ask whether patents work well as property rights, and, if not, what institutional and legal reforms are necessary to make the patent system more effective.
For a PDF of the chapter on Software Patents click here.
