Patent Systems May Not Be an Effective Incentive to Encourage New Technologies - Study

IRVINE, CA - Researchers at the University of California, Irvine and the University of Kansas have found evidence that patent systems do not promote the progress of “useful arts” as defined by the US Constitution.

According to the University of California, Irvine, a new study published in The Columbia Science and Technology Law Review challenges the traditional view that patents foster innovation, suggesting instead that patents may harm new technology, economic activity, and societal wealth. These results may have important policy implications because many countries count on patent systems to spur new technology and promote economic growth.

To test the hypothesis that patent systems promote technological innovation, Bill Tomlinson of UC Irvine's Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, and Andrew Torrance of the University of Kansas School of Law, developed an online simulation game of the patent system, PatentSim. Their results suggest that a patent system underperforms a "commons," in which no patent protection is available, on several important measures.

Although these surprising results call into question traditional justifications for patent systems, they do align with the increasingly well-supported notion that user and open innovation can succeed where patents may fail.

PatentSim uses an abstract model of the innovation process, a database of potential innovations, and a network over which users may interact with one another to license, assign, buy, infringe and enforce patents.

PatentSim allows users to simulate the innovation process in one of three scenarios: a patent system, a “commons” system with no patents, or a system with both patents and open source protection.

The researchers measured the efficacy of the patent system based on 1) innovation – the number of unique inventions; 2) productivity – a measure of economic activity; and 3) societal wealth – the ability to generate money.

The subjects of the simulation game were first-year law students who had never had any intellectual property coursework.