Welcome to part three of our series of comments on ‘research priorities,’ drawn from the 2013 Global Congress Research Survey. This section focuses mostly on patents, health, and trade issues.
Part 1 provides an explanation of the survey and the first collection of comments.
Part 2 focuses mostly on copyright reform and enforcement.
As before, if you’d like to submit a couple paragraphs about research priorities for the field, here’s the place to do so. We’ll publish them back out.
Amy Kapczynski, Yale Law School, USA
I think we need more serious conceptualization of the commons and of public alternatives to the market. Studies of actual existing innovation schemes — in the commons, or public — that work and that conceptualize why sharing is important are high priorities, as well as work that explores how to deal w/ the flaws of these modes (insularity, waste, political interference1. Also, there needs to be more work on local IP law, and implementation of international agreements locally. We are better at the international scale because it’s easier to access.
Jorge Contreras, American University, USA
There is a need for good empirical work that quantifies the impact of patenting structures on innovation and welfare across different jurisdictions. Do more or fewer patents fuel innovation? What is the impact of patent litigation on innovators? Are there migrations of talent, capital or funding across borders based on patent issuance or litigation?
Arlene Zank, Way Better Patents, USA
Significant effort needs to be dedicated to patent quality research and the dynamics of the patent marketplace. There are several “urban legend” patent studies that are informing policy discussions – the James Bessen and Michael Meurer work on the impact of non-practicing entities, Colleen Chien on patent litigation, for example. These studies are based on a proprietary dataset developed by a firm that stands to benefit from results of the study. More high-quality scientific examination of these types of findings is needed. Researchers and investigators need to see if they can replicate the results of these studies independently and document the quantitative and economic methods for measuring the impact of NPEs.
An extension of work done on the impact of asymmetric information in patent licensing discussions is needed. Earlier work by Mark Lemly and others that discuss the economic impact of the lack of information transparency on patent licensing discussions warrants significant academic scrutiny. Along the same lines, the impact of private transfer of intellectual property (or more accurately the transfer of IP in private1 should be examined in light of the disclosure requirements for patents. Continue reading “The Global Congress Research Survey: Research Priorities, Part 3, Patents, Medicines, and Trade”