Policy Levers in Patent Law

Patent law is the primary policy tool to promote innovation, encourage the development of new technologies, and increase the fund of human knowledge. To accomplish this end, the patent statute creates a general set of legal rules that govern a wide variety of technologies. This seeming paradox - a m...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Virginia law review 2003-11, Vol.89 (7), p.1575-1696
Main Authors: Burk, Dan L., Lemley, Mark A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biotechnology
Business innovation
Computer software
Differences
Federal circuit courts
Industrial policy
Intellectual property law
Inventions
Law
Patent law
Technological innovation
Technology
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Summary:Patent law is the primary policy tool to promote innovation, encourage the development of new technologies, and increase the fund of human knowledge. To accomplish this end, the patent statute creates a general set of legal rules that govern a wide variety of technologies. This seeming paradox - a monolithic legal incentive for wildly disparate industries - is resolved by the realization that, despite the appearance of uniformity, patent law is actually as varied as the industries it seeks to foster. This article first summarizes these technology-specific divergences, and examines the various different theoretical approaches to patent law. It then identifies ten sets of policy levers that already exist in patent law, and the ways in which they permit the courts to take account of different types of innovation in different industries. It finally considers the economic characteristics of innovation in five different industries: chemistry, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, semiconductors, and software.
ISSN:0042-6601
1942-9967
DOI:10.2307/3202360