Separating Marketing Innovation from Actual Invention: A Proposal for a New, Improved, Lighter and Better-Tasting Form of Patent Protection
21 Pages Posted: 1 Jul 2004
Abstract
This Article suggests that commercial entities sometimes obtain patents for reasons unrelated to securing profitable technological monopolies. Patents, especially those with narrow scopes that are easily designed around, may be obtained to disadvantage competitors or to make the patent holder appear innovative, rather than to fence off an invention for commercial exploitation. Patents obtained for nontraditional reasons - denoted leverage and keeping up appearances patents in this Article - may represent highly inefficient uses of both public and private resources. To solve some of these efficiency problems, the author proposes creating a second-tier Origination Patent option, which would offer patentees more secure patent protection for a shorter period of time.
Keywords: Invention, innovation, patents, patent law, monopoly, commercial exploitation, efficiency
JEL Classification: K00, K1, K2, K4
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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