Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Suthersanen, Uma; Dutfield, Graham --- "Conclusions and Recommendations" [2007] ELECD 142; in Suthersanen, Uma; Dutfield, Graham; Chow, Boey Kit (eds), "Innovation Without Patents" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: Innovation Without Patents

Editor(s): Suthersanen, Uma; Dutfield, Graham; Chow, Boey Kit

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845429591

Section: Chapter 11

Section Title: Conclusions and Recommendations

Author(s): Suthersanen, Uma; Dutfield, Graham

Number of pages: 6

Extract:

11. Conclusions and recommendations
Uma Suthersanen and Graham Dutfield

11.1 JUSTIFYING IPRs
Patents are tools for economic advancement that should contribute to the enrich-
ment of society through (i) the widest possible availability of new and useful
goods, services and technical information that derive from inventive activity,
and (ii) the highest possible level of economic activity based on the production,
circulation and further development of such goods, services and information.
In pursuit of these aims, inventors are able to protect their inventions through a
system of property rights ­ the patent system. One of the reasons that patents
are so controversial is that the IP incentive, as far as it actually works, functions
by restricting use by others of the protected invention for a certain period. Yet
follow-on innovation by others is more likely to happen if use is not restricted.
Thus a balance between private control over the use of technical information
and its diffusion needs to be struck. Where the line should be drawn is very dif-
ficult to determine but its ideal location will vary widely from one country to
another, and, one may argue from one business sector to another. In countries
where little inventive activity takes place, free access to technical information
may well do more to foster technological capacity building than providing
strong private rights over such information.
We face two conflicting schools of thought. An economic classicist would
argue that the main role of patent law is to prevent rewards from being ...