In addition to the sources already cited, you might have your student track down the classic Fritz Machlup study, done originally for a Congressional committee, I believe, on the patent system. As I remember the paper (which I believe was published in the Journal of the Patent Office Society), it concludes that it would be irresponsible to create a patent system if one didn't already exist, but that having one, it would be irresponsible to repeal it. During the 19th century there was a strong anti-patent movement in Europe, some countries nearly repealing patent laws and a few actually doing it. There is also some empirical studies suggesting that patents have limited or no importance in many industries, but a high degree of importance in other industries (such as pharmaceuticals). Sid Winter's work (he's an economist at Yale, I believe) is the place to get started with this. There is also an extremely interesting legislative history to the 1980 amendments to the Plant Variety Protection act in which many argued against patents on plant varieties. In addition, there are lots of articles, among them, one by Brian Kahin in Technology Review, and one by Simson Garfinkel, Mitch Kapor and Richard Stallman, that argue against patents for software innovations.
Pamela Samuelson
University of Pittsburgh Law School
<psa2[_at_]vms.cis.pitt.edu>
Received on Tue Dec 06 1994 - 14:57:17 GMT
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