Inovações Não Drásticas: Patentes, Difusão Tecnológica e Antitruste[Non Drastic Innovations: Patents, Technological Diffusion, and Antitrust]

Economic literature describes drastic and non-drastic innovations as sources of marginal cost reduction. The difference is that non-drastic innovations are unable to reduce the new marginal cost in order to ensure that the innovator is able to set monopoly price lower than the previous marginal cost. So while protected by a patent, the innovator monopolist will not have incentives to reduce its price. At the end of the patent protection period, it is possible a market movement in direction of lower prices and higher quantities. However, this welfare gain is achieved only with the entry of a large number of competitors, which in turn depends on the efficiency of the diffusion of new technology. Failures of technological diffusion can stimulate anticompetitive behaviour, eliminating the gains to society. The antitrust policy can mitigate these risks and strengthen the role of technological diffusion of the patents.