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The L&E of Intellectual Property – Do we get maximum innovation with the current regime?

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  • Ejan Mackaay

Abstract

Innovation is crucial to economic growth – the essential path for lifting much of the world population out of dire poverty and for maintaining the living standard of those who already have. To stimulate innovation, the legal system has to support the means through which innovators seek to get rewarded for their efforts and risks taken. Amongst these means, some, such as the first mover advantage or 'lead time,' are not directly legal; but secrets and intellectual property rights are legal institutions supported for the specific purpose of stimulating innovation. Whilst the protection of secrets has not changed very much over recent years, intellectual property (or IP) has. IP borrows some features from ordinary property rights, but is also distinct, in that, unlike physical goods, information, the object of IP, is not inherently scarce; indeed as information and communication technologies expand, the creation and distribution of information is becoming ever cheaper and in many circumstances abundant, so that selection is of the essence ('on the internet, point of view is everything'). New information builds on already existing information. Where rights on information extend too far, their monopolising effect may hamper innovation. The paper investigates the underlying structure of IP rights and surveys what we know empirically about the incentive effects of IP as about industries that flourish without formal IP. L'innovation est essentielle à la croissance économique, elle-même la voie obligée pour faire sortir une grande partie de la population mondiale de la misère et pour maintenir le niveau de vie des personnes qui en sont déjà sorties. Pour stimuler l'innovation, le système juridique doit soutenir les moyens par lesquels les innovateurs cherchent rémunération de leurs efforts et des risques pris. Parmi ceux-ci, certains comme l'« avance de départ » ne sont pas directement juridiques; mais le secret commercial et la propriété intellectuelle sont des institutions juridiques soutenues dans le but précis de stimuler l'innovation. Alors que la protection des secrets n'a pas beaucoup évolué au cours des ans, la propriété intellectuelle (PI) l'a bien. La propriété intellectuelle emprunte certains traits de la propriété classique des biens matériels, mais est aussi distincte, en ce que, contrairement aux biens matériels, l'information – l'objet de la PI – n'est pas par nature rare ; en fait, à mesure que les technologies de l'information et des communications s'étendent, la création et la distribution de l'information devient toujours moins chère. Dans certains cas, l'information devient même abondante à telle enseigne que la sélection et essentielle ('on the internet, point of view is everything'). L'information nouvelle s'appuie sur de l'information déjà disponible. Là où les droits sur l'information, et notamment la PI, s'étendent trop loin, leurs effets monopolisateurs risquent d'interférer avec l'innovation. Le texte examine la structure sous-jacente des droits de propriété intellectuelle et fait un survol de ce que nous savons de manière « empirique » sur les effets incitatifs de la PI de même que des industries qui prospèrent sans droit de propriété intellectuelle formel.

Suggested Citation

  • Ejan Mackaay, 2015. "The L&E of Intellectual Property – Do we get maximum innovation with the current regime?," CIRANO Working Papers 2015s-40, CIRANO.
  • Handle: RePEc:cir:cirwor:2015s-40
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    File URL: https://cirano.qc.ca/files/publications/2015s-40.pdf
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    intellectual property – copyright – innovation; propriété intellectuelle; droit d'auteur; innovation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K00 - Law and Economics - - General - - - General (including Data Sources and Description)
    • K29 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Other
    • L17 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Open Source Products and Markets
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

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