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Brousseau, Eric; Bessy, Christian --- "Public and Private Institutions in the Governance of Intellectual Property Rights" [2006] ELECD 372; in Andersen, Birgitte (ed), "Intellectual Property Rights" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Intellectual Property Rights

Editor(s): Andersen, Birgitte

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845422691

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: Public and Private Institutions in the Governance of Intellectual Property Rights

Author(s): Brousseau, Eric; Bessy, Christian

Number of pages: 35

Extract:

8. Public and private institutions in
the governance of intellectual
property rights
Eric Brousseau and Christian Bessy

ABSTRACT
Based upon a comparative institutional analysis of the institutional
frameworks involved in the governance of intellectual property rights
(IPR) systems in France and in the US, both in the domain of patents
and copyrights, we demonstrate that the differences of performances
among contrasted systems of property rights do not only depend upon
the wording of the law, but also result from the governance mechanisms
that implement and complete the law. In particular we show that there
are essential complementarities between public and private institutions
designed by the owners of IPRs. Institutions allow agents to reduce the
costs of settling and defending exclusive rights of use over intangible
goods by collectivizing the related operation. Collectivization can however
generate maladaptation costs since the management of these rights cannot
be customized. We then show that the optimal `division of labour' between
public institutions, private institutions and individuals varies according to
the type of IPR infringement and according to the diffusion strategy used
by the owner(s) of the IPRs. We conclude by pointing out that the design
of the organization of the institutional framework should be more carefully
taken into account when dealing with the optimal design of IPR systems
to solve the protection/diffusion dilemma.

Keywords: Patent, Copyright, Institutional design, Protection/diffusion
dilemma


1 INTRODUCTION
The governance of intellectual property rights (IPRs) is becoming a crucial
question for economic policies because activities related to ...