The Patent Trap - Harvard Magazine Jul-Aug edition

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http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/070575.html

Inventors' Incubus
The Patent Trap

Patents—a form of governmental protection to prevent ideas from being sold or used by someone else without permission—have a long and controversial history, dating back to Bohemia’s King Wenceslaus II in 1300. Queen Elizabeth I of England issued about 50 patents, some of them quasi-monopolies, including the right to manufacture and sell salt and vinegar. Historically, the purpose of patents has been to encourage creativity and innovation, with the idea that people would share ideas more freely if they knew that their original work and potential profits from it were protected.

But as Josh Lerner, Ph.D. ’91, Schiff professor of investment banking at Harvard Business School, and Adam B. Jaffe, Ph.D. ’85, Hecht professor in economics at Brandeis, argue in their new book, Innovation and Its Discontents: How Our Broken Patent System Is Endangering Innovation and Progress and What to Do about It, two small changes in the U.S. patent system have had giant unintended consequences. First, in 1982, appeals in patent lawsuits were consolidated from the regional federal circuit courts to a single specialized patent court. Second, in the early 1980s, Congress attempted to make the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) financially self-sufficient, with fees paid by patent applicants covering its costs. . . .

read the whole article at:
http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/070575.html

~Garrett M. Graff

Josh Lerner e-mail address: jlerner@hbs.edu