James Bessen on Patents as Property

Video via http://realserver.law.duke.edu/ramgen/spring06/cspd/02272006.rm

Description

"Do patents promote innovation and economic growth like property rights do? James Bessen addressed this question by reviewing empirical research on patents, including historical research, cross-country studies, estimates of patent value and estimates of litigation costs. Bessen focused on a disturbing trend: in many industries, patents are actually decreasing the incentive to invest in innovation. He argued that this has happened because the law has changed to make patents less like property. For example, in many areas it is hard to know what the boundaries of patent claims are, discouraging licenses and encouraging disputes and litigation. Bessen has been both an innovator and a research economist: he wrote one of the first desktop publishing programs in the early 1980s and became CEO of a successful software company. After selling the company, Bessen has done research on innovation economics at MIT and Boston University." (http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/lectures/)