Re: [Patents] Discussion tomorrow with Eero Bomanson (HELP)

[Ward Vandewege <ward@pong.be>]

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On Tue, Mar 18, 2003 at 01:41:12AM +0200, Ville Oksanen wrote:
> Any suggestions how to counter these arguments? The audience is mostly
> IP-lawyers, which means that I'm anyway facing an up-hill battle.. Also, do
> you have any questions for Mr Bomanson, I hope that I will be able to get
> some answers out of him.

(assuming this has not been posted here before, which it well may have been -
in which case my apologies for the waste of bandwidth/time)

The paper 'Sequential Innovation, Patents, and Imitation' by James Bessen and
Eric Maskin may be of some help. You can find it here:
http://www.researchoninnovation.org/patent.pdf

Abstract:

How could industries such as software, semiconductors, and computers have
been so innovative despite historically weak patent protection?  We argue
that if innovation is both "sequential" (each invention builds on its
predecessor) and "complementary" (a diversity of innovators raises the
chances of discovery), a firm's profit may actually be enhanced by
competition, and a patent system may interfere with such competition and with
innovation.  A natural experiment in the software industry and the positive
relationship between innovation and firm entry provide support for our model. 

Bye for now,
Ward.

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