OVERCOMING NON-COOPERATION: DESIGNING A PATENT SYSTEM FOR THE PUBLIC

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dc.contributor.advisorSoltan, Karol Een_US
dc.contributor.authorLeaderman, Arthur Isaacen_US
dc.contributor.departmentGovernment and Politicsen_US
dc.contributor.publisherDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_US
dc.contributor.publisherUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2020-02-01T06:34:36Z
dc.date.available2020-02-01T06:34:36Z
dc.date.issued2019en_US
dc.description.abstractPatents allocate power by assigning exclusive property rights to persons who claim to have discovered new scientific or technical art. Accordingly, infringers can be treated like trespassers. In a longstanding theoretical quarrel, some insist that these exclusive rights serve society as incentives to innovation and as just rewards for inventors. Others counter that learning is socially generated and that intangible ideas should not be privately rationed. Theory aside, the institutional facts are polycentric and modulated. While a dominant regime of codes and treaties indeed protects exclusionary property in ideas, several enduring exceptions (subregimes) counter patent exclusivity. Regulations in the technology domains of environment, energy, pesticides, plant genetic resources, and some pharmaceuticals, for example, sometimes set aside strict exclusionary norms and force a patent holder to include others in a semi-commons of cooperative sharing. This dissertation observes that the polycentricity and variability in the patent system expose resistance to exclusionary property rights in ideas. The resistance is stable and can inspire an institutional redesign that brings inclusive norms into dominance, without forfeit of reasonable social and material rewards for inventors. It further challenges the two prevailing modes of justification for the dominant exclusionary norms. Utilitarian or welfare-maximizing justifications for the exclusionary norms are shown to be both multifarious and conflicting. At the same time, non-consequentialist justifications, under the banner of natural rights for the inventor, stumble because patents can be assigned arbitrarily, waste the resources of non-patent holders, and constrain society’s collective liberties to expand knowledge. This study also supports a “proof of concept” for an alternative, inclusive patent system that 1) operates without prohibitory injunctions; 2) extends licenses-of-right that compensate inventions without deadweight losses; 3) opens application and examination procedures for better patent quality; and 4) expands private ordering of disputes to lower transaction costs. This inclusive alternative is hardly utopian: the aforementioned subregimes significantly validate the practicality of cooperative, non-exclusive norms.en_US
dc.identifierhttps://doi.org/10.13016/gbp6-47zn
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/25392
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledIntellectual propertyen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledEthicsen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledPolitical scienceen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledInstitutional Designen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledProperty Rights in Intangiblesen_US
dc.titleOVERCOMING NON-COOPERATION: DESIGNING A PATENT SYSTEM FOR THE PUBLICen_US
dc.typeDissertationen_US

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