ECONOMICS AND THE LAW: U.S. Patent System

This research examines the contemporary controversies related to the United States patent system. The most significant of these controversies are those related to restrictions that patent holders are allowed to placed on the use of legally protected intellectual property, the economic harm suffered by patent holders as a result of infringements on patents, and the legal life of patents.

Michael Greenfield (1992, pp. 10511094) contends that emerging technological innovation (in fields such as biotechnology and information systems) is being hampered by requirements of the existing American patent system. This problem is held to be most acute in relation to restrictions that American law permits patent holders to place on the use of their intellectual property.

Victoria SlindFlor (1992a, p. 1) reports that American patent holders are suffering economic harm stemming from patent infringements by foreign manufacturers. Most such infringements, however, result from differences between American patent law and the patent law of other countries (Merges, 1988, p. 812). The patent infringement problem resulting from the illegal counterfeiting of goods is a much smaller part of the equation (Grossman and Shapiro, 1988a, pp. 5975; Grossman and Shapiro, 1988b, pp. 79100). Nevertheless, patent infringement related to the counterfeiting of goods exacts si

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the municipal government will pay for the street lighting on an aggregate basis. Thus, in the United States, the type and quantity of street lighting tends to vary from community to community. What the definition of public goods does demand, however, is that the good must be paid for communally. Thus, in the example of street lighting provided by a private sector electrical utility on a contract basis, the cost of providing the service would be supplied by the taxing jurisdiction contracting for the service. There would be no way for the electrical utility to deny the street lighting to individuals unable or unwilling to pay for it. Therefore, the service would be funded by tax revenues raised in the jurisdiction where the service was provided. Without taxation, there is no way to assure that all individuals receiving a public good will help pay for its provision. There will always be some individuals who would volunteer to pay for a public good, while others, likely the majority, would refuse. The general assumption is that most individuals would refuse to pay a socalled fair share for a public good, if they believed it would be provided, regardless of what they did. In the case of intellectual property protected by
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Approximate Word count = 4124
Approximate Pages = 16 (250 words per page)

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