Reason on IP Protection and Creativity

Posted by michael on Saturday February 22, 2003 @08:06AM from the piling-on dept.

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."

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General Patents Information by syr · 2003-02-22 08:15 · Score: 5, Informative

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.
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Orignal Paper by Jeremy+Erwin · 2003-02-22 08:17 · Score: 5, Informative

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