This paper is a critique of the current US patent system along general consequentialist lines. I present a pro tanto case against it because of its effects on scientific inquiry. The patent system is often thought to be justified (or necessary) because it provides incentives to innovate. I challenge this concern. Economists and legal scholars have spent a good portion of time analyzing particular aspects of the patent system. I here synthesize their work, showing how it amounts to a pro tanto moral case against patents. This is the case even though patents are said to incentivize innovation, its disclosure, and its transfer to interested parties. I explore all of these possibilities, finding them to only weakly (at best) support the institution of patent rights. Juxtaposing this weak case for patents along with various problems that patents cause for science, we find a pro tanto case against our current patent system. To my knowledge, no one has tried to synthesize the various concerns I raise, with particular attention to not only the patent’s system purported ability to incentivize innovation, but also to disclose and transfer technology.
BoldrinMLevineDK (2013) The case against patents. Journal of Economic Perspectives27: 3–22.
11.
BooninLG (1989) The university, scientific research, and the ownership of knowledge. In: WeilVSnapperJW (eds) Owning Scientific and Technical Information: Value and Ethical Issues. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, pp. 253–267.
12.
BurkDLLemleyMA (2003) Policy levers in patent law. Virginia Law Review89: 1575–1696.
13.
ChoMKIllangasekareSWeaverMA. (2003) Effects of patents and licenses on the provision of clinical genetic testing services. Journal of Molecular Diagnostics5: 3–8.
14.
CohenJELemleyMA (2001) Patent scope and innovation in the software industry. California Law Review89: 1–58.
EisenbergRS (1989) Patents and the progress of science: exclusive rights and experimental use. University of Chicago Law Review56: 1017–1086.
17.
EisenbergRS (1994) A technology policy perspective on the NIH gene patenting controversy. University of Pittsburgh Law Review55: 633–652.
18.
GalliniNT (2002) The economics of patents: lessons from recent U.S. patent reform. Journal of Economic Perspectives16: 131–154.
19.
GhoshS (2008) When property is something else: understanding intellectual property through the lens of regulatory justice. In: GosseriesAMarcianoAStrowelA (eds) Intellectual Property and Theories of Justice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 106–121.
20.
GoldmanAH (1989) Ethical issues in proprietary restrictions on research results. In: WeilVSnapperJW (eds) Owning Scientific and Technical Information: Value and Ethical Issues. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, pp. 69–82.
21.
HallBHarhoffD (2012) Recent research on the economics of patents. Annual Review of Economics4: 541–565.
22.
HallBZiedonisRH (2001) The patent paradox revisited: an empirical study of patenting in the U.S. semiconductor industry, 1979-1995. RAND Journal of Economics32: 101–128.
23.
HellerMAEisenbergRS (1998) Can patents deter innovation? The anticommons in biomedical research. Science280: 698–701.
24.
JaffeAB (2000) The US patent system in transition: policy innovation and the innovation process. Research Policy29: 531–557.
25.
KapczynskiASyedT (2013) The continuum of excludability and the limits of patents. Yale Law Journal122: 1900–1963.
26.
KartumSLernerJ (1999) What is behind the recent surge in patenting?Research Policy28: 1–22.
27.
LernerJ (1995) Patenting in the shadow of competitors. Journal of Law and Economics38: 463–495.
LernerJ (2002b) 150 years of patent protection. American Economic Review92: 221–225.
30.
LernerJ (2009) The empirical impact of intellectual property rights on innovation: puzzles and clues. American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings99: 343–348.
31.
LichtenbergFRPhilipsonTJ (2002) The dual effects of intellectual property regulations: within- and between-patent competition in the US pharmaceutical industry. Journal of Law and Economics45: 643–672.
32.
MachlupF (1958) An economic review of the patent system. Study No. 15 of the Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 85th Cong., 2nd Session, 1958.
33.
MachlupF (1962) The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States. Princeton University Press.
34.
MansfieldE (1990) Intellectual property, technology and economic growth. In: RushingFWGanz BrownC (eds) Intellectual property rights in science, technology, and economic performance: international comparisons. Boulder: Westview Press, pp. 17–30.
35.
MackenzieMKeatingPCambrosioA (1990) Patents and free scientific information in biotechnology: making monoclonal antibodies proprietary. Science, Technology, and Human Values15: 65–83.
36.
MergesRP (1996) Property rights theory and the commons: the case of scientific research. In: PaulEFMillerFDJrPaulJ (eds) Scientific Innovation, Philosophy, and Public Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 145–167.
37.
MergesRP (1999) As many as six impossible patents before breakfast: property rights for business concepts and patent system reform. UC Berkeley School of Law Working Paper. Available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=180748 (accessed 18 July 2016).
38.
MeurerMJ (2003) Controlling opportunistic and anti-competitive intellectual property litigation. Boston College Law Review44: 509–544.
39.
MoserP (2013) Patents and innovation: evidence from economic history. Journal of Economic Perspectives27: 23–44.
40.
NelkinD (1984) Science as Intellectual Property. New Haven: Macmillan.
41.
NelsonRR (1996) The Sources of Economic Growth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
42.
NelsonRR (2001) Observations on the Post-Bayh-Dole rise of patenting at American universities. Journal of Technology Transfer26: 13–19.
43.
OgburnWFThomasD (1922) Are inventions inevitable? A note on social evolution. Political Science Quarterly37: 83–98.
44.
PenroseE (1951) The Economics of the International Patent System. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
45.
RamelloGB (2008) Access to and exclusion from knowledge: intellectual property, efficiency, and social justice. In: GosseriesAMarcianoAStrowelA (eds) Intellectual Property and Theories of Justice. London and Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp. 73–93.
46.
SakakibaraMBranstetterL (2001) Do stronger patents induce more innovation? Evidence from the 1988 Japanese patent law reforms. RAND Journal of Economics32: 77–100.
ScotchmerS (1991) Standing on the shoulders of giants: cumulative research and the patent law. The Journal of Economic Perspectives5: 29–41.
50.
ShapiroC (2008) Patent reform: aligning reward and contribution. In: JaffeABLernerJSternS (eds) Innovation Policy and the Economy, vol. 8. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 111–156.
51.
ShiffrinSV (2008) The incentives argument for intellectual property protection. In: GosseriesAMarcianoAStrowelA (eds) Intellectual Property and Theories of Justice. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 94–105.
52.
SvatosM (1996) Biotechnology and the utilitarian argument for patents. In: PaulEFMillerFDJrPaulJ (eds). Scientific Innovation, Philosophy, and Public Policy. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 113–144.
53.
TreriseJ (2010) Against the strength of patent protection. The Monist93: 467–483.
54.
U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 8.
55.
VaughanF (1956) The United States Patent System: Legal and Economic Conflicts in American Patent History. Norman: The University of Oklahoma Press.
56.
WinterS (1989) Patents in complex contexts: incentives and effectiveness. In: WeilVSnapperJW (eds) Owning Scientific and Technical Information. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, pp. 41–60.
