Reason on IP Protection and Creativity

rnturn writes "A long but interesting article over at Reasononline discusses a paper written by a pair of economists and published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis (!) and the reactions to it of several other economists. A snippet from the article: 'Moreover, U.S. court decisions in the 1980s that strengthened patent protection for software led to less innovation. "Far from unleashing a flurry of new innovative activity," Maskin and Bessen write, "these stronger property rights ushered in a period of stagnant, if not declining, R&D among those industries and firms that patented most."' Not exactly news to most readers but it appears that their paper is making waves in economic circles."

Comments

General Patents Information

[syr]

If you're looking for a broad range of information concerning patents--what they cost, trade secrets, legal matters, USPTO information, etc.-- a good place to start is Patents.com. Or you can always go to CrazyPatents to see some of the more ridiculous patents out there.

GameTab - Game Reviews Database

Orignal Paper

[Jeremy Erwin]

Boldrin and Levine's original paper is available here (pdf).

Re:Eye Opener

[Kanagawa]

/. has not been saying this for years. I rarely see cogent slashdot posts on economics, much less posts that include a mathematical model. Slashdotters usually limit themselves to the type of comments you just provided, "See!! We're right! Woo!!" But, we mustn't confuse instinct with academic analysis. Moreover, we ought not confuse the article, originally posted here, with the actual paper. The staff research report by Boldrin and Levine here is 40 pages of economic theory. The summary is mostly fluff and sound bytes. Yeah, its appealing to think it may be correct, but the arguments on both sides are very strong. more

FWIW, you can find more of Levin's work at various places. Prof. Danny Quah also has some thoughts on the subject.