Innovation needs patents reform

The international patent system demonstrates many failures to adapt to new ways of producing information. The coming of antibiotics finally forced it to take account of the shift from "individual" to "corporate" invention by establishing new criteria for patentability, However, these favour industries which can operate a "portfolio" approach in their R&D. to the disadvantage of other industries and smaller firms in all industries. In complex technologies, whose economic importance has been growing rapidly, patents are now used as much as a bargaining currency to prevent "lock-out" from use of state-of-the-art components developed by competitors, as they are as a stimulus to R&D. Changes which have been proposed to deal with these problems, including empirical supporting evidence, are discussed. These include compulsory expert arbitration of disputes with legal aid for the respondent party in the event of an appeal to the Courts, an "Innovation Warrant" as a supplementary type of protection, and "shared-risk" compulsory licensing as a practical way of changing from time to money as the measure of a grant. This would give multiple innovators access to inventions as early as possible, while maintaining or even improving incentives to invest in invention and innovation. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.